Vaccine and new strain

[Baileysforchristmas]

Does anyone else think the vaccine won’t work on the new strain? That’s why the government are panicking so much, they have thrown billions at the vaccine. How many more strains are out there? What about 3rd world countries who aren’t testing so much, could there be another strain out there that we don’t even know about?

There's nothing at the moment to suggest the vaccine won't work on the new strain. You have to remember a feature of viruses is they mutate because they are inherently unstable. It's why there isn't one universal flu jab in the way there's one MMR jab.

So scientists working on the vaccine will absolutely have been predicting mutations.

Having said that they can't necessarily predict how it will mutate so they will be keeping an eye on things.

So far, however, the mutation has been in the vaccine's ability to move quicker - not that it's more deadly. Which is good news, I suspect, for the vaccine.

I think it’s something they’ll keep their eye on because it’s a possibility. I think the problem is potentially that the majority of the mutations are on the spike protein the mRNA vaccines are aimed at.

It may be that the bigger problem is that the more we allow this to spread the greater the chance of it developing more mutations that doesn’t respond to the vaccine.