Vaccines VS the Variants.
| Vaccines versus the variants |
| Moderna and Pfizer acknowledged today that their vaccines might require alterations and boosters to fend off new and future variants of the virus. It’s a stark admission that the virus is adapting more quickly than previously thought, and that it may continue to mutate in ways that can help it evade vaccines. |
| The British variant had no effect on the levels of neutralizing antibodies — the type that can disable the virus — produced after vaccination. But with the South African form, there was a sixfold reduction in those levels. Even so, Moderna said, those antibodies “remain above levels that are expected to be protective.” |
| Nevertheless, Moderna has already begun developing a new form of the vaccine that could be used as a booster against the South African variant. |
| “We’re doing it today to be ahead of the curve, should we need to,” Dr. Tal Zaks, Moderna’s chief medical officer, told The Times. “I think of it as an insurance policy.” |
| Fortunately, the mRNA technology used by Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech allows the companies to create vaccines much more quickly than traditional methods. The chief executive of BioNTech, Dr. Ugur Sahin, said today that the company could develop a new variant-targeted vaccine in six weeks, though it would be up to regulators to determine the timeline for rolling it out. |
| Scientists have long predicted that the coronavirus would eventually evolve in ways that could thwart vaccines, though few thought it would happen so quickly. Part of the problem is how fast the virus is spreading worldwide, which gives it more opportunities to mutate. |
| Another issue is that few countries — including the U.S. — have invested in the kind of programs that could detect emerging variants, essentially leaving them blind to mutations. The pace of vaccinations, which could eventually provide herd immunity, has also been slow in places like the U.S. and the European Union — and there are many countries in the world where no one has been vaccinated at all. |
I’m pretty sure the dinosaurs died out when they stopped gathering food and started having meetings to discuss gathering food
A bookshop is one of the only pieces of evidence we have that people are still thinking
but it could be a false sense of security.
Originally Posted by 4bee
Nope, it is not and no there is no reason it might be either... however, in the world today it is also
Bookmarks