What will it take to stay one step ahead of a mutating COVID-19?

As new variants of COVID-19 rage around the world, we examine how scientists are fighting to be able to anticipate them – and how this will translate into government policy at home.

As of now, nearly 110 million people around the world are known to have been infected with SARS-CoV2, the virus that causes COVID-19 and which first came to light more than a year ago. The actual number of people who have had the virus is probably higher as many cases are asymptomatic, and others went untested during the crisis. In 2021, new variants of the virus have led countries to shut borders, cities to reimpose lockdowns and health ministries to declare second, third and fourth waves. It might seem that by now, after thousands of scientific papers, that the global scientific community would have new tools to anticipate new variants, and the wisdom to stay a few steps ahead of new outbreaks. But identifying and catching dangerous variants of a novel disease early remains maddeningly difficult. With the pandemic coursing into its second terrible year, it is worth revisiting some fundamental questions. How do scientists see what is happening to the pathogen? How do they know their findings are accurate? How do they translate what they find into recommendations for policymakers? And how do they see what might come next: in this epidemic, or the next one?