“This whole epidemic I’ve seen throughout the epidemic, where I took a step back and said:‘ Oh, ’” he recalls.
Health officials have ruled out the possibility that coronavirus vaccines will not work against UK stress, but Warobi and other scientists think it is a possibility – and only a possibility – that this new way will, to some extent, outsmart smartphone vaccines.
“This is the first variable I’ve seen where I think this is a burning question,” said Warobe, head of the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Arizona.
Trevor Bedford, an associate professor in the Department of Vaccines and Infectious Diseases at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, is also keeping an eye on the UK type.
Large clinical trials have shown that vaccines by Pfizer / Bioentech and Modern are almost 95% effective against novel coronaviruses. That trial however was carried out by the UK variant before it started its explosive growth.
Bedford said he did not believe the vaccine would be useless against the strain of the new UK, but that it could reduce its effectiveness somewhat.
“It could reduce the effectiveness of the vaccine from 95% to something like 80% or 85%,” he said. “It will have a modest effect, not a dramatic effect.”
Health officials have said there is no reason to think the vaccine will not work against the new variant.
“[There is] Assistant Secretary of Health Admiral Dr. Brett Giroire said Monday that there is no reason to suggest, or believe, that he would avoid the vaccines we have now.
“This particular type of vaccine in the UK, I think, is very unlikely to escape immunization,” Monsef Slow, head of operations at Operation Vorp, said on Sunday.
But some scientists point out that this change is not like the others before.
“We should not jump to conclusions (as many have done) No “We don’t know at this stage in time – but we should know sooner,” Christian Anderson, a professor of immunology and microbiology at Scripps Research Anderson, wrote to CNN. ”
Scientist Bette Corber at the Los Alamos National Laboratory is also examining the variant.
“Is the new mutation a concern for the new mutation?” Bott Corbert, a scientist at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, wrote to CNN.
“There are 17 unique mutations in this virus like nowhere else, and it’s really unusual,” Wurobe said.
It’s not just the number of changes that some scientists are concerned about, but the way they can work together.
Dr Ugur Sahin, CEO of Bioentech, said he did not think the new variant would cause any problems, but the vaccine could be updated if that happened.
“We must not forget that we still have the opportunity, if necessary, to adjust the vaccine to the type of this new virus, if need be,” Sahin said. “I don’t think this is necessary. But if it is needed, there is a technical possibility to do it.”
.
