World Health Organization has warned that new variants were more likely to continue emerging if wealthy nations continue to boost their own citizens ahead of sharing vaccines with countries where many have not received their first dose.
Jean-Francois Delfraissy, president of the French government's scientific advisory board, has already warned of potential variants. "We are at the mercy of a new variant which, if we ask the scientist community, could be expected in the autumn...
it could happen before then," he said last week. "Will it be a more transmissible variant? Will it be more severe? Will it escape the vaccine?
Nobody knows." While some have blamed governments for relaxing restrictions too quickly, epidemiologists also pointed the finger at the BA.2 sub-lineage of the Omicron variant which has become dominant in many countries.