Should vaccination be mandatory to deal with the Delta variant?
TAIPEI (The China Post)  An increasing number of media outlets are calling on authorities to make the vaccination mandatory amid reports of the rapid spread of the Delta variant. During an interview with the Echo newspaper, the founders of BioNTech, the company behind one of the most widely used vaccines against COVID-19, expressed their concerns at making vaccination mandatory though. The unvaccinated will most likely be infected, said Ugur Sahin, a physician and co-founder of the company. He warned that the next generation of variants will have an infectivity rate of about 6 to 8, which means that one infected person will be able to infect up to 8 people who are not immune.  But when faced with the issue of vaccination, Sahin explained that vaccination is above all an individual responsibility. In my opinion, as a doctor and scientist, making it compulsory could have the opposite effect, he told the Echo, foreseeing negative feedbacks from the population if they are forced to follow the rule. He explained that the most effective way, for now, is to convince people of the benefits of vaccination. With the arrival of the Delta variant picking up steam this summer, Ugur Sahin and his wife zlem Treci, who is the companys medical director, said that they want to do laboratory tests to see if [a vaccinated persons serum] is able to protect against the new variants as well.  They pointed out that the BioNTechs vaccine shows about 89% efficacy against symptomatic Delta variant disease two weeks after full vaccination, says the co-founder, according to a British study. The German company is now able to adapt its vaccines to the different variants thanks to an adapted process that allows it to manufacture a vaccine within 100 days, Ugur Sahin told the French daily. Against this backdrop, Tureci warned that a third dose of vaccine is very likely to be useful to strengthen the immune system. BioNTech announced on March 30 that 2.5 billion doses will be manufactured in 2021, 25% more than originally announced. This interview was reported in The Figaro on July 12. Follow this link for more information: BioNTech :  Nous pouvons disposer dun nouveau vaccin dans les cent jours 