“Unlikely,” Gupta agreed.
Vivek Murthy, surgeon candidate for President-elect Joe Biden, said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday that there is “no reason to believe that the vaccines that have been developed will also be ineffective against this virus.”
Vaccines produce wide-ranging immune system responses beyond just those to the spike protein, several experts noted.
The possibility that new strains will be resistant to existing vaccines is low, but not “non-existent,” said Dr. Moncef Slaoui, the US government’s chief science adviser for vaccine distribution, in CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday.
“So far I don’t think there is a single variety that would be resistant,” he said. “This particular variant in the UK, I think, has most likely not escaped vaccine immunity.”
Bedford agreed.
“I’m not worried” because it likely takes many changes in the genetic code to undermine a vaccine, not just one or two mutations, Bedford wrote on Twitter. But vaccines may need to be adjusted over time as changes accumulate, and changes need to be monitored more closely, he wrote.
Murthy said the new strain does not change public health advice to wear masks, wash hands, and maintain social distance.