The news about coronavirus variants has dominated the headlines over the past few weeks, and the country’s leading expert on infectious diseases has warned that one strain in particular could become dominant in the US by March. The variants also led many people to ask an important question: Will existing COVID-19 sting levels be effective against the new strains, or does the world need new vaccinations?
According to Reuters, Andrew Pollard, the lead investigator on the Oxford vaccine trial, said for the time being that the ‘jury is no longer on it’.
But, he noted, “all developers are preparing new vaccines, so if we need them, we’ll have them available to protect people.”
There are three variants in particular for experts: A coronavirus variant that was first identified in the United Kingdom at the end of last year, known as B.1.1.7, another that was identified in South Africa, the name B.1.351, and another first found in Brazil, now known as P.1.
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In January, Moderna gained confidence in the ability of its COVID-19 vaccine to remain effective against the South African and British variants, following the results of a further peer-reviewed study. However, the company said at the time that it intended to test a booster shot “to further increase the neutralizing titers against emerging strains”, as well as to promote another varying candidate specifically against the South African variant.
Pfizer, the maker of the first coronavirus vaccine that has seen emergency response in the U.S., also plans to investigate an amplifier shot against the variant.
Meanwhile, Johnson and Johnson recently announced that the single-shot coronavirus vaccine was 66% effective in preventing COVID-19 in a global trial, and 57% effective in South Africa at 28 days after vaccination.
Over the weekend, however, South Africa announced that it had temporarily suspended the use of a coronavirus vaccine developed by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford, after preliminary findings showed that the jab had little effect on mild to moderate disease due to the B.1.351 variant in young people.
A AstraZeneca spokesman earlier told Fox News that the study could not determine the efficacy of the vaccine in severe cases, given the trial design.
“I think there’s clearly a risk of confidence in the way people can see you,” Pollard was quoted as saying by Reuters. “But as I say, I do not think there is cause for concern today.”
“The very important question is about serious diseases and we did not study it in South Africa because that was not the point of the study. We specifically asked questions about young adults,” he added.
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Pollard noted that as long as vaccines provide “enough” immunity to prevent serious diseases, he is hopeful that vaccines will eventually continue to be the world’s way out of the pandemic.
“As long as we have enough immunity to prevent serious illnesses, hospitalizations and deaths, the pandemic will be fine in the future,” he said.
Fox News’ Alexandria Hein and Kayla Rivas contributed to this report.