Will vaccines work against the U.K. coronavirus variant?

 

• "We don't know at the moment if our vaccine is also able to provide protection against this new variant," but because the proteins on the variant are 99% the same as the prevailing strains, BioNTech (NASDAQ:BNTX) has "scientific confidence” in the vaccine.
• "The likelihood that our vaccine works... is relatively high," CEO Ugur Sahin declared, saying the company is currently conducting further studies and hopes to have certainty within the coming weeks.
• Dr. Moncef Slaoui, head of Operation Warp Speed, also expects Pfizer's (NYSE:PFE) and Moderna's (NASDAQ:MRNA) COVID-19 shots will be effective against a new mutation of the virus, dubbed B117. The chances one set of mutations would completely alter the structures found around the spike proteins "are extremely low," he declared.
• "It stands to reason that this mutation isn't a threat, but you never know. We still have to be diligent and continue to look," added Dr. Nelson Michael, director of the Center for Infectious Diseases Research at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research. U.S. army scientists have already started doing a computer analysis on genetic sequences of the new U.K. variant, and if there's additional concern, studies would need to be done in the laboratory and on animals.
• World Health Organization officials meanwhile said the coronavirus is mutating "at a much slower rate" than seasonal influenza and "so far, even though we've seen a number of changes and a number of mutations, none has made a significant impact on either the susceptibility of the virus to any of the currently used therapeutics, drugs, or the vaccines under development, and one hopes that that will continue to be the case."
• While many nations have banned travel with countries where the strain has been identified, former FDA chief Dr. Scott Gottlieb doesn't think that's necessary in the U.S., as the strain is "already" present in the population. "We're going to have an epidemic that continues to build over the course of the next three or four weeks, we'll reach a peak, and then we'll start to see infection rates decline as we see vaccinations get rolled out."
• Related: AstraZeneca (NYSE:AZN), Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ), Novavax (NASDAQ:NVAX), Inovio Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:INO), Dynavax (NASDAQ:DVAX), GlaxoSmithKline (NYSE:GSK), iBio (NYSEMKT:IBIO), Altimmune (NASDAQ:ALT) and VBI Vaccines (NASDAQ:VBIV).
• https://seekingalpha.com/news/3646502-will-vaccines-work-against-u-k-coronavirus-variant