Existing vaccines should work against new coronavirus variants—for now From National Geographic by Michael Greshko
More than a year into the COVID-19 pandemic, public health authorities are contending with an emerging threat: new variants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Researchers around the world have recently identified three notable variants: B.1.1.7, first found in the United Kingdom in December; 501Y.V2, found in South Africa in December; and P1, identified in Brazil on January 13.
There’s no evidence that any of these variants are deadlier than versions of the virus that came before. However, some may be more transmissible due to mutations that alter the coronavirus’s spike protein—the part of the virus that latches on to human cells, and the part that vaccines target. If left unchecked, these variants could spread faster and cause even more death and misery, on top of the more than two million confirmed COVID-19 deaths worldwide through January 15, according to Johns Hopkins University.
However, as vaccine distribution ramps up around the world, researchers are seeing early signs that existing vaccines should work with the body’s multifaceted immune system to offer some level of protection from mutated versions of the virus.
“The variants do have changes in the [virus’s] spike protein, but not enough to make the vaccine not protective,” said Arnold Monto, the acting chair of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Vaccine and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee, in a January 11 interview with the medical journal JAMA. “It looks like [existing vaccines] should work, and we’ll know more definitively in the next couple of weeks.”
To slow the evolution of the virus into new variants, experts say it’s critical to do the same things we know prevent the virus’s spread—wear masks, wash hands, keep socially distanced, and get vaccinated as soon as possible.
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