Future scenarios for the COVID-19 pandemic

Vaccines alone, unless they achieve high population coverage, offer long-lasting protection, and are effective in preventing both SARS-CoV-2 transmission and COVID-19, will not end the pandemic or allow the world to return to “business as usual”. [...]high levels of global vaccine-mediated protection are achieved across the world, it could be catastrophic if measures such as mask wearing, physical distancing, and hand hygiene are relaxed prematurely.4 Countries, communities, and individuals must be prepared to cope in the longer-term with both the demands and the consequences of living with such essential containment and prevention measures. The COVAX initiative is just an initial step towards addressing vaccine equity and global coordination for vaccine access, especially for lower income countries.12 At the other extreme is a pessimistic scenario, in which SARS-CoV-2 variants emerge repeatedly with the ability to escape vaccine immunity, so that only high-income countries can respond by rapidly manufacturing adapted vaccines for multiple rounds of population reimmunisation in pursuit of national control while the rest of the world struggles with repeated waves and vaccines that are not sufficiently effective against newly circulating viral variants. CW is a member of the working group on pandemics and crisis of the Group of Chief Science Advisors to the European Commission and the European Group on Ethics in Science and New Technologies and has received grants from the German Federal Ministry of Research and Education, the German Federal Ministry for Family and Seniors, the Bertelsmann Foundation, the German Federal Ministry for Health, the German Federal Ministry of Justice and for Consumer Protection, personal fees from Agaplesion gAG as a member of supervisory board, and personal fees from several companies and organisations all unrelated to this Comment.