New variants of the coronavirus are likely to continue emerging even if the entire global population receives the vaccine, according to warnings from health experts. Andrew Freedman, an infectious diseases academic at Cardiff University's medical school, stated that even with universal vaccination, the risk of new variants remains, with some potentially being more virulent than Omicron. He noted, "Future variants may be more contagious or milder, but we cannot know for sure," according to CNBC.
**Preventing New Variants**
These expert statements come as vaccines have proven to significantly protect people from severe infection and hospitalization. Despite the fact that widespread vaccination coverage is likely to save millions of lives, it could also help in preventing the emergence of new variants, according to experts. So far, 58.6% of the global population has received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, with 9.28 billion doses administered worldwide, according to Our World in Data.
The coronavirus, which first appeared in China in late 2019, has continued to mutate and evolve throughout the pandemic. Some mutations have been particularly effective in facilitating the virus's spread. Variants like Alpha, first discovered in the UK in September 2020, spread globally. This was followed by the Delta variant, discovered in India in October 2020, which replaced Alpha. The world is now contending with the Omicron variant, which is more transmissible than Delta but appears to cause less severe disease, according to a growing body of studies conducted rapidly since Omicron's first emergence in South Africa in November 2021.
It is noted that the majority of the adult population in wealthy countries, such as those in Europe or the United States, has been fully vaccinated. However, in low-income countries, only 8.5% of people have received at least one dose of the vaccine, according to data.
