About this Research Topic
The emergence of COVID-19 pandemic put the world into a challenge to control the illness. Within a relatively short period, several vaccines have been developed firstly in USA, Russia, UK, and China. There is no world consensus about vaccines approval. Each country has approved certain vaccines which might differ from other countries. The most widely employed vaccines were not extensively studied. These include Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine, Moderna (mRNA-1273) COVID-19 vaccine, Oxford/AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine, J&J COVID-19 vaccine, Sinopharm COVID-19 vaccine, Sinovac COVID-19 vaccine, and Sputnik V Vaccine. The vaccines were used under an emergency use authorization to battle the COVID-19 pandemic. The protective effect of these vaccines requires a continuous evaluation because the virus has continuous evolution. The current data about the efficacy of the vaccines are mostly adopted by manufacturers. Therefore, independent studies are required for approved vaccines to verify the protective effects of different vaccines especially in cases of new viral mutations such as Delta and now the two Omicron variants. Delta variant may cause more severe illness than the other variants whereas Omicron variants spreads more easily than other variants and is less severe in general. The virus proved to have the ability to develop mutations continuously whereas the available vaccines were not modified as fast as the viral mutation pace. It is most likely that new variants will emerge, but their virulence cannot be predicted. The risk in this emergence is that a highly virulent variant might escape the protective effects of the available vaccines.
In this Research Topic we welcome authors to contribute with Original Research articles, Review articles, Mini-review, Meta-Analysis, Brief Research Reports, as well as other article types accepted by the journal that include, but are not limited to the following sub-themes:
• Side effects and complications of COVID-19 vaccines.
• Duration of illness protection after full protocol vaccine administration.
• Comparison of illness severity between vaccinated and unvaccinated people.
• Comparison of illness severity between vaccinated people with different vaccines who are infected with the same variant.
In this Research Topic we welcome authors to contribute with Original Research articles, Review articles, Mini-review, Meta-Analysis, Brief Research Reports, as well as other article types accepted by the journal that include, but are not limited to the following sub-themes:
• Side effects and complications of COVID-19 vaccines.
• Duration of illness protection after full protocol vaccine administration.
• Comparison of illness severity between vaccinated and unvaccinated people.
• Comparison of illness severity between vaccinated people with different vaccines who are infected with the same variant.
Keywords: COVID-19, COVID-19 vaccines, COVID-19 mutations, COVID-19 variants, antiviral agents, efficacy
Important Note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.
