https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2021/02/vaccines-should-end-the-pandemic-despite-the-variants-say-experts/ Skip to content The Harvard Gazette Search for: [ ] [Search] * Arts & Humanities * Business & Economy * Campus & Community * The Coronavirus Update * Events * Health & Medicine * National & World Affairs * News & Announcements * Photography * The Quest for Racial Justice * Science & Technology * News + * About * Accessibility * Athletics News and Scores * For Media & Journalists * Privacy Policy * Trademark The Daily Gazette Sign up for daily emails to get the latest Harvard news. [ ] [Subscribe] Harvard University * * * * National & World Affairs Shandiin Herrera assembles food boxes. World Making gifts that keep on giving Native COVID-19 relief fund plans to use excess funds to build community resilience Professor Alexandra Natapoff World Just a misdemeanor? Think again Law professor's book on how the system punishes the poor and people of color has inspired a new documentary Health & Medicine The Dental Key team. Health Dental students fill the gap in online learning My Dental Key offers tutorial videos, augmenting class and clinical training Illustration for covid testing. Health Professor, banking giant join on studies of rapid COVID tests to avoid future shutdowns Chan and Brigham's Mina says virus won't vanish despite greater vaccine availability Featured * National & World Affairs + Health & Medicine * Arts & Humanities * Science & Technology * Business & Economy * Campus & Community + Experience + Commencement 2019 (c) 2021 The President and Fellows of Harvard College The Harvard Gazette Vaccines can get us to herd immunity, despite the variants [AP_21042706805325_25] We may duck a surge from variant that sent Britain reeling Health & Medicine Vaccines can get us to herd immunity, despite the variants A medical hand in a glove holds an ampoule with a vaccine and a syringe with illustration Health & Medicine Vaccines can get us to herd immunity, despite the variants iStock Consortium experts note that higher participation in inoculations will be needed By Alvin Powell Harvard Staff Writer DateFebruary 25, 2021February 25, 2021 Share * Email * Facebook * Twitter * LinkedIn Also in the Series 1. Making gifts that keep on giving Shandiin Herrera assembles food boxes. 2. Professor, banking giant join on studies of rapid COVID tests to avoid future shutdowns Illustration for covid testing. 3. Looking back on Harvard's COVID response one year later Scientist in a lab. 4. Lessons from Katrina on how pandemic may affect kids In 2005, survivors from Hurricane Katrina were temporarily housed in the Houston Astrodome. Harvard researchers looked at Katrina's impact on the children and how the lessons learned there could be applied to the current situation. 5. When even grief is taken away Illustration of person with face in hands. View all of The Coronavirus Update A Harvard immunologist said current vaccines appear to be effective enough to end the pandemic, despite growing concerns that more infectious COVID-19 variants would severely blunt the effectiveness of the preventative treatments and set the nation back in its fight against the disease. Galit Alter, professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and the Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT, and Harvard, said the fast-spreading U.K. variant seems able to evade some vaccine protection, and the South African variant appears able to skirt even more. Despite that, she said, none have completely escaped the body's post-vaccination immune responses. That's because, Alter said, though much attention has focused on how antibodies boosted after vaccination target their attack on the virus' spike protein, the immune system has an array of other defenses that vaccination also mobilizes, including antibodies that attack other parts of the virus, and, importantly, T-cells that attack the infected cells the virus hijacks in order to replicate. "What we're seeing is that these variants don't seem to affect T-cell immunity all that much and they [the T-cells] seem to be as effective in recognizing these variants as they do the original virus," Alter said. "What that means is that we actually have very important backup mechanisms built into our vaccines that will continue to provide protection against these newly emerging variants." Alter, speaking during a noontime briefing Wednesday by the Massachusetts Consortium on Pathogen Readiness (MassCPR), said that even if our most effective vaccines' effectiveness falls to 70 percent from 95 percent, the world still has a path to achieving the herd immunity that can end the pandemic. "While we in the medical community are guardedly hopeful and optimistic ... there is cause for concern that with the appearance of viral variants across the globe, we might be facing a decidedly novel stage of the contagion: COVID 2.0." -- George Daley, dean of Harvard Medical School "What we see is that immunity conferred by the vaccine can essentially completely limit the breakout of any infections in the population," Alter said. "These data give us hope that even with the vaccines that do not confer 95 percent protection against these emerging variants, the light at the end of the tunnel is approaching." That doesn't mean the road ahead will be easy, Alter said. She acknowledged that the lower level of effectiveness against the variants means that more people will have to be vaccinated to achieve the same population-wide protective effects. Earlier estimates based on highly effective vaccines held that 50 percent to 60 percent of the population would have to be vaccinated in order to create herd effects. At 70 percent effectiveness, she said, the threshold will rise to roughly 75 percent, significantly higher, but nonetheless still achievable. Short of that hopeful scenario, Alter said, lies another that is nonetheless preferable to the continuation of the current wave of widespread illness and death. Because the vaccines greatly reduce severe disease and death, a vaccination campaign that removes the most severe cases from the pandemic would mean that those that remained would be mild and asymptomatic cases, something similar to those caused by its close viral cousin: the common cold. In that case, Alter said, though the virus wouldn't be eliminated, its effect would be blunted enough that the pandemic would also effectively end. The online event, "Demystifying SARS-CoV-2 Variants," was sponsored by MassCPR and hosted by HMS Dean George Daley. Daley said as we approach the mid-March anniversary of the World Health Organization declaring the coronavirus a global pandemic, the death toll from the virus has reached heights almost unimagined a year ago. Globally, there have been more than 113 million cases and 2.5 million deaths. In the U.S. alone, there have been more than 28 million cases and 500,000 deaths. "The toll in lives has been extraordinary and the economic loss, also staggering," Daley said. "While we in the medical community are guardedly hopeful and optimistic that the vaccines promise the end of the current pandemic, there is cause for concern that with the appearance of viral variants across the globe, we might be facing a decidedly novel stage of the contagion: COVID 2.0." Related A vaccination center at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Mass. We may duck a surge from variant that sent Britain reeling Expert says falling COVID rates, rising vaccinations, timing may hamper spread Illustration for COVID. Seeded amid the many surprises of COVID times, some unexpected positives Various innovations, rise of women leaders, greater collaboration between scientists, clinicians, to name few N95 mask. Upgrade your mask as more-transmissible COVID strain surges In shift, experts now urge N95s or double-masking as variants set to dominate viral landscape David Eaves. So why did the state vaccine-reservation system crash? Looking at the particular challenges the government faces with digital projects Daley pointed out that while mutation is expected and most are harmless, the virus' global spread gives it many more chances to hit on one that makes it more infectious or deadly. Jeremy Luban, a MassCPR member and professor at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, said that variants will continue to emerge and some, such as the P.1 version detected in Brazil, have caused alarm among scientists. In Manaus, Brazil, a large outbreak early in the pandemic caused scientists to conclude that nearly 70 percent of the population had been exposed and, after a lot of illness and death, the population had reached herd immunity. When the P.1 strain arrived in December, a second surge tore through the city, causing hospitalizations to rocket and raising concern the variant may be able to escape the immune response caused by prior infection. Other participants discussed the potential for variants to weaken not just the effectiveness of vaccines, but also that of treatments developed to help those already sick. Monoclonal antibodies, which mirror humans' natural antibodies and also target the virus' spike protein, are potentially at risk, according to Jonathan Abraham, assistant professor of microbiology. He said that antibodies that attack different parts of the spike can be developed and strategies to attack other proteins important to the virus can also be targeted. Remdesivir, for example, attacks enzymes that play key roles in viral replication. Enzymes are attractive targets, Abraham said, because they mutate less frequently than other proteins in the virus and so could potentially provide lasting protection against different variants. Editor's Picks Kirkland House is reflected in the windows of Winthrop House. Campus The House that will be home On March 12, first-years will learn which residence will be theirs through 2024 Gabe Fox-Peck. Arts Harvard grad reflects on 'Twilight Zone' type of year Gabe Fox-Peck discusses his Grammy-nominated song, releasing album in lockdown Professor Alexandra Natapoff World Just a misdemeanor? Think again Law professor's book on how the system punishes the poor and people of color has inspired a new documentary Also in the Series 1. Making gifts that keep on giving Shandiin Herrera assembles food boxes. 2. Professor, banking giant join on studies of rapid COVID tests to avoid future shutdowns Illustration for covid testing. 3. Looking back on Harvard's COVID response one year later Scientist in a lab. 4. Lessons from Katrina on how pandemic may affect kids In 2005, survivors from Hurricane Katrina were temporarily housed in the Houston Astrodome. Harvard researchers looked at Katrina's impact on the children and how the lessons learned there could be applied to the current situation. 5. When even grief is taken away Illustration of person with face in hands. View all of The Coronavirus Update Up Next Health & Medicine We may duck a surge from variant that sent Britain reeling A vaccination center at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Mass. Health & Medicine We may duck a surge from variant that sent Britain reeling A vaccination center at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Mass. AP Photo/Steven Senne * * * *