New Coronavirus Strain Discovered In The U.K.

Jan, 2021 - By SMI

Experts are affirmative about the effects of the existing vaccines in fighting off the infections that the new strains of the coronavirus are causing.

Experts from the U.K. identified a new mutation of the coronavirus on 19th December, 2020. This strain is expected to spread quicker than the previous strain and result in more adverse issues. After this announcement, countries such as Israel, Canada, and Germany have prohibited flights coming from the U.K. However according to Vin Gupta, University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation’s assistant professor, the vaccines that are currently approved and in use are enough to fight off this new strain. He says that he has full belief in the effectiveness of the already existing vaccines and his beliefs are based on the fact that the genetic level of the newly discovered strain is very much similar to the older strains.

The vaccines produced by Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech have 90% effectivity rate in terms of creating antibodies and fighting off the virus. U.K. was the first country to approve and authorize the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, mainly for emergency use followed by the U.S. and Canada. According to Gupta, the vaccines are very efficient in producing antibodies and attacking the COVID-19 virus and the minor genetic changes of the virus will not affect the efficiency.

However, he also states that in future the new virus strains should also be taken into account, hence updating the vaccine will be necessary. Dr. Vivek Murthy, the next U.S. Surgeon General, confirms that there is no evidence that the new virus strains are deadlier than the previous one. Murthy says that people who are residing at home and taking the necessary precautions should not fear this news and he is also firmly believes that the existing vaccines will be able to fight with the new mutation too.