I had to look twice.  4,000 variants.  And, the UK is stocking up on all of them.  But, the takeaway isn’t just the number of variants.  The Health Minister said that the UK wants to be able to respond ‘in the autumn and beyond.’

Is that code for: this virus isn’t going away any time soon?  Will we be shackled with it for years to come?

Source: About 4,000 Covid variants across world, says UK minister | World news | The Guardian