The steady drumbeat of reports about new variants of the coronavirus — first in Britain, then in South Africa, Brazil and the United States — has brought a new worry: Will vaccines protect against these altered versions of the virus?

The answer so far is yes, several experts said in interviews. But two small new studies, posted online Tuesday night, suggest that some variants may pose unexpected challenges to the immune system, even in those who have been vaccinated — a development that most scientists had not anticipated seeing for months, even years.

The findings result from laboratory experiments with blood samples from groups of patients, not observations of the virus spreading in the real world. The studies have not yet been peer-reviewed.

But experts who reviewed the papers agreed that the findings raised two disturbing possibilities. People who had survived mild infections with the coronavirus may still be vulnerable to infection with a new variant; and more worryingly, the vaccines may be less effective against the variants.

(CNN)Scientists have identified an "escape mutant" that may decrease the efficacy of Covid-19 vaccines.
The mutation -- called E484K -- has been found in a variant of the coronavirus first spotted in South Africa two months ago. That variant has now spread to 12 other countries.
Penny Moore, associate professor at the National Institute for Communicable Diseases in South Africa, called the mutation "alarming."

We fear this mutation might have an impact, and what we don't know is the extent of the impact," she said.
E484K is called an "escape mutant" because it's been shown it might be able to escape some of the antibodies produced by the vaccine.
"I'm worried," said Alex Sigal, a virologist at the Africa Health Research Institute.
Sigal, Moore, and other scientists who are studying the E484K mutation still have to complete their work in the lab to see if the vaccine is less effective against this new variant.



https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/12/health/coronavirus-mutation-south-africa-variant/index.html