Casey McKhann New coronavirus variants could cause more reinfections, require updated vaccines

 Casey McKhann 

Mr. Ippolito 

January 19th, 2020

AP Biology/ Current Event 11 

Kai Kupferschmidt. "New coronavirus variants could cause more reinfections, require updated 

vaccines." Science | AAAS, 15 Jan. 2021, https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/01/new-coronavirus-variants-could-cause-more-reinfections-require-updated-vaccines. 

Kai Kupferschmidt’s informative and engaging article "New coronavirus variants could cause more reinfections, require updated vaccines” informs the reader about groundbreaking studies and the concerns that have arisen regarding variations of the COVID-19 virus. The article discusses that new strains could bypass antibodies, and reinfect individuals who should be immune. The author cites an incident in Manaus, Brazil as an example of the situation in which a new variant could be leading to rising rates of infectivity. However, the rising number of infections could also just be a result of waning immunity among past carriers. The additional variable of the new variations makes researching the issue much more difficult. Additionally, there are a seemingly endless number of new variations of the virus appearing all across the globe, greatly increasing the difficulty of scientific research as each individual strain of the virus needs to be investigated. The uncertainty and fear arises when scientists ponder about the ability of the current vaccines to prevent additional mutations of the virus from infecting the human body. While currently, it is believed that variations do not bypass the current vaccine, it is not certain that this is true. 

This article is very important to modern society. While it appears that as a society we are nearing the end of this hellish pandemic, these variants present the potential to set our society back to floor 1. This could mean an additional long quarantine period before scientists figure out solutions to these variations. While it does not seem like that is necessary at the moment, it is still a possibility that all individuals would like to avoid. The article should also hopefully raise people's awareness about the virus, especially those who have already suffered from it. It is important that individuals realize that they are not safe just because they have been infected before. 

The article as a whole was extremely informative and lacked many weaknesses. It presented the information very clearly and did a good job presenting solely facts to the reader. It served as an important warning to the reader about potential arising dangers. I think that is important for everyone to read this article because of the information it shares. However, I do believe that the subtopics led to the article becoming slow and boring at times and felt that natural transitions would have been better for the flow of the article. Apart from this one issue, I believe that it was incredibly well written.