Here’s one from me: New and more dangerous varieties of COVID-19 from Britain and South Africa will be covered by the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, preliminary evidence suggests, although the vaccines will be slightly less effective.
“We are yet to see a virus that can evade a vaccine response to a degree where it would be of significant concern,” said Associate Professor Stuart Turville, a virologist at the Kirby Institute.
“The vaccine responses so far have been strong in many studies and this level of strength will hopefully translate to cover many different viral flavours.“
Pfizer’s vaccine won regulatory approval in Australia on Monday and the federal government plans to roll it out from the end of February.
The more contagious British variant of COVID-19 has been sequenced 50 times in Australia so far, and Brisbane was forced into a snap lockdown after a hotel quarantine cleaner in the city became infected with the strain.
Emerging evidence has suggested that the new variants slightly lower the effectiveness of both vaccine-induced and natural antibodies and British health authorities made headlines this week when they revealed concerns that existing vaccines might not work against the new variants.
