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The good news is that the new COVID-19 coronavirus mutations found in Britain, South Africa, Brazil and other countries so far do not appear to be inherently more deadly than other variants. The bad news is that because they spread more easily, more people are infected and die – and the increase in infections gives the virus a greater chance to mutate. Worse yet, the new mutations appear to modestly limit the effectiveness of Moderna and Pfizer / BioNTech’s vaccines, the researchers reported on Wednesday.
Researchers at Rockefeller University of New York and the National Institutes of Health collected the blood of 10 people inoculated with the Moderna or Pfizer vaccine and tested these samples with coronavirus variants from Great Britain, South Africa and Brazil. With some of the samples, the antibodies stimulated by the vaccine were up to three times less effective at preventing the virus from infecting cells, said Dr Michel Nussenzweig of Rockefeller. “It’s a little difference but it’s definitely a difference.”
Neither these findings nor Pfizer’s separate and more promising research have been peer reviewed. Pfizer said on Wednesday that a second study had shown its vaccine to be equally effective against several mutations found in the UK. Moderna and AstraZeneca were also testing their vaccines against various mutations.
Vaccines still protect people against the development of COVID-19, immunologists say. “We don’t want people to think that the current vaccine is already outdated. This is absolutely not true,” said E. John Wherry of the University of Pennsylvania. “There is still immunity here … a good level of protection”, but the mutations “actually reduce the ability of our immune response to recognize the virus.” Vaccines may need to be changed – a fairly straightforward process for Pfizer and Moderna vaccines – and countries shouldn’t rely solely on vaccinations, experts warn.
“We have an arms race between vaccines and the virus,” said Dr Buddy Creech, vaccine specialist at Vanderbilt University. The Associated Press. “The slower we deploy the vaccine around the world, the more opportunities we will give this virus to escape” and mutate.
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