21-12-2020, 10:27
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#1855
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The Invisible Woman
Cable Forum Team
Join Date: Jun 2003
Location: between Portsmouth and Southampton.
Age: 73
Services: VM XL TV,50 MB VM BB,VM landline, Tivo
Posts: 40,354
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Re: Coronavirus
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-55388846
Quote:
Will the vaccines work against the new variant?
Almost certainly yes, or at least for now.
All three leading vaccines develop an immune response against the existing spike, which is why the question comes up.
Vaccines train the immune system to attack several different parts of the virus, so even though part of the spike has mutated, the vaccines should still work.
"But if we let it add more mutations, then you start worrying," said Prof Gupta.
"This virus is potentially on a pathway for vaccine escape, it has taken the first couple of steps towards that."
Vaccine escape happens when the virus changes so it dodges the full effect of the vaccine and continues to infect people.
This may be the most concerning element of what is happening with the virus.
This variant is just the latest to show the virus is continuing to adapt as it infects more and more of us.
A presentation by Prof David Robertson, from the University of Glasgow on Friday, concluded: "The virus will probably be able to generate vaccine escape mutants."
That would put us in a position similar to flu, where the vaccines need to be regularly updated. Fortunately the vaccines we have are very easy to tweak.
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