Do coronavirus vaccines work against a new variant? Physician from the University of Pennsylvania

The new variant or mutation of the coronavirus reported in the UK raises new questions, such as will the vaccine still work?

The good news is that most researchers believe the vaccine will still work, just in case Pfizer and Moderna test their vaccines against this new variant.

Microbiologist Susan Weiss, Ph.D. has been studying coronaviruses for four decades and is now co-director of Penn’s Center for Research on Coronavirus and Other Emerging Pathogens.

Regarding this new variant, she says there is still a lot to learn and whether it causes the virus to spread faster is not yet scientifically proven.

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“I mean, what if the virus is just spreading faster because people are less careful and go to parties? It’s a correlation, it’s not an observation of cause and effect,” said Dr. Weiss.

She also thinks the variant is highly unlikely to significantly affect the vaccine, because the vaccine develops antibodies against multiple parts of what’s known as the spike protein on the virus, not just this mutated part.

Vaccine makers Pfizer and Moderna are still putting it to the test. “It’s a good thing to do, but I’m sure they are pretty sure it won’t show anything else,” she said.

Viruses are constantly changing. Dr. Weiss said the best we can do now is spread the virus, giving it less of a chance to mutate.

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“Instead of fearing it, keep doing what we should be doing anyway,” said Dr. Weoss

The only reason this variant was found is because researchers were testing more samples of the virus.

The CDC will ramp up testing in January. Weiss says that they will also look for this variant in their research.