How Bad Are All These New COVID Variants? - Lifehacker

It seems to be 50% more transmissible than a typical COVID virus.

It has multiple mutations, including eight on the spike protein.

(The spike protein is the part of the virus that interacts with our cells. When we make antibodies to the spike protein, those antibodies can stop the virus from infecting us. The mRNA vaccines include the genetic code of the spike protein, which allows our cells to make the protein and then make antibodies to it.).

The first COVID vaccine to be rolled out in the U.S., the one from Pfizer and BioNTech, is an mRNA….

One of its mutations, E484K, may be able to evade antibodies; there’s some reason to suspect that people who have recovered from a previous case of COVID can be infected by these mutations.

None of them seems to cause more severe disease; most are probably susceptible to the existing vaccines; and PCR tests still seem to be able to detect them.

We need to know if the variants can evade our natural immunity (which would mean you could catch the virus twice) and whether they can evade immunity from the various vaccines and vaccine candidates that already exist.

And we need to amp up our surveillance, in every country, to be able to find new variants as they emerge and watch where existing variants are taking over.

In time, if it turns out that new variants can evade existing vaccines, the vaccines may need to be updated.

We do this for the flu vaccine every year; it’s possible we may have to do the same thing for the COVID vaccine.