Latest Covid mutation highlights vaccine inequity

This is Bloomberg Opinion Today, a rotating kaleidoscope of Bloomberg Opinion’s opinions. Sign up here.Today’s Agenda A new virus variant hi [Bloomberg]( Follow Us [Get the newsletter]( This is Bloomberg Opinion Today, a rotating kaleidoscope of Bloomberg Opinion’s opinions. [Sign up here](. Today’s Agenda - A new virus variant [highlights vaccine inequity]( ... - … possibly exacerbating the[travails of the tourist industry]( ... - … and [extending the threat]( posed by Long Covid. A “hamster wheel” of variants B.1.1.529 is the latest SARS-CoV-2 variant to emerge during the pandemic. Likely to be dubbed the Nu strain under World Health Organization naming protocols, it could prove to be more transmissible and better able to evade prior immunity than previous strains. The smugness of rich nations that expected high local vaccination rates to free their citizens from the grip of the coronavirus looks set to backfire.  More than half of the 200 countries for which Bloomberg has data have achieved vaccination rates of less than 50% of their populations, David Fickling writes. More than 60 haven’t even jabbed 25%, including South Africa where the latest variant was first found. [Those under-vaccinated countries are where the virus is most likely to mutate.]( But they will spread far and wide, with wealth providing scant protection from contagion. “Escaping from immunity is something that viruses do really well,” Ian Mackay, an associate professor of virology at the University of Queensland, told David. “If there are lots of populations that are still susceptible, we’re in the same kind of hamster wheel of this that we’ve been in before.” With more than 3.4 billion unvaccinated bodies still available worldwide for the virus to transmogrify in, David argues that the need to close the vaccine equity gap is more urgent than ever.  Leave Your Skis in the Attic The pandemic trashed earnings for the European ski industry last year, particularly after ski resorts turned out to be really, really good at incubating the virus during the first wave. With cases rising across the region, this winter was already looking bleak, with Christmas bookings down by almost a fifth compared with 2019, Andrea Felsted writes. Yet all is not lost for the tourism industry. Andrea points out that [the summer season is much more of a profit driver]( for travel companies than winter breaks are. Moreover, customer behavior has changed during the pandemic, with travelers booking trips much closer to their planned departure dates. Online travel agent Thomas Cook, for example, says that a quarter of its bookings are for vacations in the coming month. “It is July and August that really count,” Andrea writes. By the time those warmer months roll around, we might all feel the need to go and lie on a beach for a couple of weeks. Long Covid’s “Hidden Reservoir” Brain fog. Tiredness. Joint pain. Difficulty breathing. These are just some of the symptoms associated with Long Covid, which affects up to 30% of victims of the coronavirus in the weeks or months after getting infected. [A new study]( suggests vaccinations may lower the risk of becoming a victim of Long Covid, although they don’t rule it out. That’s the conclusion of Sam Fazeli, Bloomberg Intelligence’s senior pharmaceutical analyst, [in a Q&A]( with Therese Raphael. The study suggests even getting jabbed after being diagnosed with Covid-19 makes the patient three times less likely to be afflicted by Long Covid. Sam says that’s down to two theories behind the symptoms — one of which posits that a “hidden reservoir” of the virus continues to infect its prey until cleared by the vaccine, the second suggesting the vaccine damps an immune response that’s causing the discomfort. “The data from this study showed a clear correlation between the time after the infection that a vaccine dose was administered and the impact on Long Covid symptoms, providing more support for the hidden reservoir hypothesis,” he says. Therese notes that at the start of the vaccination rollout, there were concerns that getting jabbed might have worsened the effects of Long Covid, and wonders whether this research allays those fears. “With this study, the body of evidence moves in favor of vaccination lowering, but not eliminating, the risk of Long Covid,” is Sam’s reply. That’s a comfort of sorts, I guess. Telltale Chart Shares of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. 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