SARS-CoV-2 variants, immune escape, and countermeasures

Abstract

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has become a global pandemic disease. SARS-CoV-2 variants have aroused great concern and are expected to continue spreading. Although many countries have promoted roll-out vaccination, the immune barrier has not yet been fully established, indicating that populations remain susceptible to infection. In this review, we summarize the literature on variants of concern and focus on the changes in their transmissibility, pathogenicity, and resistance to the immunity constructed by current vaccines. Furthermore, we analyzed relationships between variants and breakthrough infections, as well as the paradigm of new variants in countries with high vaccination rates. Terminating transmission, continuing to strengthen variant surveillance, and combining nonpharmaceutical intervention measures and vaccines are necessary to control these variants.

Keywords

SARS-CoV-2 / COVID-19 / vaccine / immune escape / breakthrough / prevention

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 82041010, 82161138018 and 92169212), Shanghai Key Laboratory of Infectious Diseases and Biosafety Emergency Response (No. 20dz2260100), and Key Discipline Construction Plan from Shanghai Municipal Health Commission (No. GWV-10.1-XK01).

Compliance with ethics guidelines

Yi Zhang, Haocheng Zhang, and Wenhong Zhang declare that they have no competing interests. This manuscript is a review article and does not involve a research protocol requiring approval by the relevant institutional review board or ethics committee.

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