Pfizer vaccine may also be largely ineffective with SA variant

[mommysboy]

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-vaccines-variants-idUSKBN2AH2VG

 

Maybe the SA variant should be called 'covid21'.

 

It may be the vaccines already need to be tweaked. Astrazeneca is already adapting its vaccine to reflect changes.

 

One thing is for sure, if the mRNA vaccines struggle, they'll all struggle.

[Moncul]

In fairness, it is worth looking at the report more closely:

"Because there is no established benchmark yet to determine what level of antibodies are needed to protect against the virus, it is unclear whether that two-thirds reduction will render the vaccine ineffective against the variant spreading around the world."

 

i.e. if the vaccine produces ten times more antibodies than are needed, a two third reduction is not an issue.

 

 

[mommysboy]

30 minutes ago, Moncul said:

In fairness, it is worth looking at the report more closely:

"Because there is no established benchmark yet to determine what level of antibodies are needed to protect against the virus, it is unclear whether that two-thirds reduction will render the vaccine ineffective against the variant spreading around the world."

 

i.e. if the vaccine produces ten times more antibodies than are needed, a two third reduction is not an issue.

 

 

 

I thought I was being fair?

 

It's the best vaccine for sure, but it's likely going to be less effective for SA variant. 

[irishman25]

14 hours ago, mommysboy said:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-vaccines-variants-idUSKBN2AH2VG

 

Maybe the SA variant should be called 'covid21'.

 

It may be the vaccines already need to be tweaked. Astrazeneca is already adapting its vaccine to reflect changes.

 

One thing is for sure, if the mRNA vaccines struggle, they'll all struggle.

this is wrong and Fake news this vaccine has been tested in England and USA and proven that it will do the job even without the changes, also check JOHN CAMPBELL web site and u-tube  and others who have the correct information. the world will never recover if this type of s*** goes on

[placeholder]

The article has since been revised:

From the article:

(This February 17 story corrects headline and first paragraph to show the reduction was in the protective antibodies elicited by the vaccine, not the protection of the vaccine overall)

[mommysboy]

3 hours ago, placeholder said:

The article has since been revised:

From the article:

(This February 17 story corrects headline and first paragraph to show the reduction was in the protective antibodies elicited by the vaccine, not the protection of the vaccine overall)

 

It was revised before I posted.

 

Nevertheless both Pfizer and AZ are tweaking their vaccines, so there must be an issue with this variant.

 

It just means that we can't get back to normal (possibly) until after summer, because there's no point ridding UK/USA of covid19 to just have another break out caused by a new variant. 

[partington]

The news articles are again expressing the story wrongly, though some may consider this semantics, it actually isn't.

 

 The virus variant cannot "reduce the amount of antibodies" the vaccine produces.  

 

How can it, when the blood samples taken from vaccinated people already exist, are stored, and have had no contact with the SA variant? 

 

The existing vaccine causes the production of many different antibodies that can stick to many different places on the spike protein.  

 

What is happening is that vaccinated people produce the same amount of all these antibodies as usual, but because the SA variant spike protein is a different shape around the variant amino acid site, the antibodies produced by vaccination that would stick to that exact site on the original virus no longer recognise that site. The other ones that stick to different areas of the spike can still recognise the SA spike and so can still potentially neutralise the virus. Therefore there is no reduction in any antibodies, some just fail to find a target on the new variant.

 

The tweak will be to construct mRNA and adenovirus sequences so that they code for the SA variant as well as the original type, and use a mixture of the two (and possibly other sequences as well if other evading variants are discovered ).

[irishman25]

On 2/19/2021 at 9:07 AM, Moncul said:

In fairness, it is worth looking at the report more closely:
YES nearly all vaccines are OK it better to give the people something that will help then doing nothing like now in SA

 

"Because there is no established benchmark yet to determine what level of antibodies are needed to protect against the virus, it is unclear whether that two-thirds reduction will render the vaccine ineffective against the variant spreading around the world."

 

i.e. if the vaccine produces ten times more antibodies than are needed, a two third reduction is not an issue.