Top South African vaccinologist Shabir Mahdi strongly advises against any further strengthening of lockdown regulations in this edition of Podcasts from the Edge with Peter Bruce and ahead of President Cyril Ramaphosa’s address to the nation. Tougher restrictions won’t work, he says, and we have to keep people outdoors and in the wind, We will only know in a few weeks whether or not current vaccines are going to be effective against the new South African variant of the coronavirus, Madhi warns, but there’s clear evidence that antibodies produced in people infected in the first wave last year are up to 10 times less potent against the new variant than they were against the original.

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