“Based on the data to date, we expect that the Moderna vaccine-induced immunity would be protective against the variants recently described in the UK; we will be conducting additional tests in the coming weeks to confirm this expectation,” the report said. statement by Moderna. .
Pfizer said it is now “generating data” on how well blood samples from people immunized with its vaccine “might be able to neutralize the new strain from the UK.”
The new coronavirus has mutated before, and both companies say they found their vaccines worked against other variants of the virus.
US surgeon general Jerome Adams said the British variant “does not change what we need to do” with regard to staying protected.
“Which is important for people to understand, as this doesn’t change what we need to do,” he said. “We have to wear masks, wash hands, keep an eye on our distances and wait for meetings, and we have to get vaccines, get vaccinated when they become available to us.”
Variant or not, the US has failed to limit the spread of Covid-19. The winter solstice on Monday was the darkest day of the year and was a neat metaphor for this period of the pandemic. The US reported about 191,000 new Covid-19 cases and 1,700 new deaths on Monday, as more than 115,000 people were hospitalized with the virus, a record high.
But just as the days will get longer and the renewal of spring approaches, so too is the promise of widespread vaccinations. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 614,000 doses of the vaccine have been administered, with tens of millions more expected in the coming months.
Dr. Fauci says the variant is likely in the US
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said Monday that the British coronavirus variant is likely already in the US.
“You have to make that assumption,” Fauci told Judy Woodruff of PBS Newshour on Monday.
“When you see something that is quite common in a place like the UK, there are also mutations that we see in South Africa, and given the travel around the world, I wouldn’t be surprised if it is there at all.”
“It is certainly not the most common yet, as it seems to have assumed predominant wildlife in the UK, but we are going to look for it now, and I am sure sooner or later we will run into it and find it, he added.
Mutations in the virus aren’t uncommon, and most of them don’t have a noticeable impact, Fauci said. Researchers are still trying to determine if the UK variant is more transmissible, but Fauci said it doesn’t appear to have any impact on the virus’s lethality.
Fauci said he thinks a UK travel ban is premature because there isn’t enough evidence to justify it. He said he would rather consider the option of mandatory testing of UK travelers.
Some researchers examining the genome of the British variant told CNN that they are concerned that the mutations from this variant could slightly reduce the effectiveness of the vaccine.
“You could imagine a modest blow to vaccine efficacy, which wouldn’t be good, but I don’t think it would break the vaccine,” said Trevor Bedford, associate professor in the vaccines and infectious diseases division of Fred Hutchinson Cancer. Research Center.
However, other experts were skeptical about the consequences for the vaccines.
“It doesn’t make people any sicker, and it doesn’t seem to affect the protective nature of the vaccine we currently use,” Fauci said.
Moncef Slaoui, Chief Scientific Advisor to Operation Warp Speed, said during a newsletter Monday that there is no “hard evidence” that the variant is transferable anymore.
“There is clear evidence that there is more of it in the population,” he said. “ Whether it’s because of a higher capacity to transmit or whether it’s because we can now sequence and see the virus all the time, when it was seeding the population in the South East of the UK, we don’t. or they weren’t looking for this particular variant. “
More than 600,000 vaccines administered
In just over a week since the start of vaccinations in the US, more than 4.6 vaccine doses have been delivered and approximately 614,000 doses have been delivered, according to the CDC.
The first round of dosing has been given to people in residential care facilities, federal officials, and health professionals such as Dr. Joseph Varon.
“This is like having gold,” said Dr. Joseph Varon on Monday to CNN, while holding a box of doses. “I’m not crying, but I got really close … Do you know how many lives you can save with this?”
The first doses of Moderna’s vaccine were sent to more than 3,500 locations in the US, compared to more than 600 locations for Pfizer. A total of 7.9 million doses of Moderna and Pfizer will be distributed in the US this week, Operation Warp Speed General Gustave Perna said Monday.
One of the people dispensing the vaccine is Todd Elble, a UPS tractor-trailer driver whose father died of Covid-19.
CNN’s Jeremy Diamond, Andrea Diaz, Shelby Lin Erdman and Naomi Thomas contributed to this report.