Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2022 Jun;71(5-6):521-536.
doi: 10.1007/s00011-022-01567-1. Epub 2022 Apr 10.

Anti-coronavirus vaccines will not accelerate the transition of humanity to a non-pandemic period, but the pandemic will take fewer victims

V V Oberemok  1   2 , O A Andreeva  3   4 , K V Laikova  3   4 , I A Novikov  3 , Y V Puzanova  3   4 , A V Kubyshkin  4
Affiliations
Review

Anti-coronavirus vaccines will not accelerate the transition of humanity to a non-pandemic period, but the pandemic will take fewer victims

V V Oberemok et al. Inflamm Res. 2022 Jun.

Abstract

The vaccination rate worldwide has reached enormous proportions, and it is likely that at least 75% of the world's population will be vaccinated. The controversy is that, while people aged 65 and older suffer a significantly higher mortality rate from COVID-19, plans are being made to vaccinate young people under the age of 20. Equally thorny is the question of vaccinating people who already have antibodies to SARS-CoV-2, as well as B and T memory cells, because they contracted and survived the virus. The possible consequences of large-scale vaccination are difficult to predict, when some people do not have access to the vaccine at all and others have already received 3 doses of the vaccine. SARS-CoV-2 will circulate through the human population forever and continue to mutate, as viruses do. Therefore, in the coming years, the need to develop and use effective vaccines and medicines for the prevention and treatment of COVID-19 will remain urgent in view of the high mortality rate from this disease. To date, three vaccine platforms have been most used: adenoviral vector, inactivated, and mRNA. There is some concern about the side effects that occur after vaccination. Whether modern anti-coronavirus vaccines can raise the safety threshold, only time will answer. It is obvious that the pandemic will end, but the virus will remain in the human population, leaving behind invaluable experience and tens of millions of victims. This article is based on search retrieves in research articles devoted to COVID-19 mainly published in 2020-2021 and examines the possible consequences of the worldwide vaccination against SARS-CoV-2 and suggests that, while anti-coronavirus vaccines will not magically transport humanity to a non-pandemic world, they may greatly reduce the number of victims of the pandemic and help us learn how to live with COVID-19.

Keywords: COVID-19; Immunity; Immunological memory; Pandemic; Reinfection; SARS-CoV-2; Vaccine.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Characterization of the three main vaccine platforms
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Predictive scheme for the outcome of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus pandemic
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Tan W, Zhao X, Ma X, et al. A novel coronavirus genome identified in a cluster of pneumonia cases—Wuhan, China 2019−2020. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Lu R, Zhao X, Li J, et al. Genomic characterisation and epidemiology of 2019 novel coronavirus: implications for virus origins and receptor binding. Lancet. 2020;395:565–574. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(20)30251-8. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Rambaut A, Holmes EC, O’Toole Á, Hill V, McCrone JT, Ruis C, du Plessis L, Pybus OG. A dynamic nomenclature proposal for SARS-CoV-2 lineages to assist genomic epidemiology. Nat Microbiol. 2020;5:1403–1407. doi: 10.1038/s41564-020-0770-5. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Zhu X, Mannar D, Srivastava SS, Berezuk AM, Demers JP, Saville JW, Leopold K, Li W, Dimitrov DS, Tuttle KS, et al. Cryo-electron microscopy structures of the N501Y SARS-CoV-2 spike protein in complex with ACE2 and 2 potent neutralizing antibodies. PLoS Biol. 2021;19:e3001237. doi: 10.1371/journal.pbio.3001237. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Deng S, Xing K, He X. Mutation signatures inform the natural host of SARS-CoV-2. bioRxiv. 2021 doi: 10.1101/2021.07.05.451089. - DOI - PMC - PubMed

Substances