Ugur Sahin, BioNTech boss, is quite confident that the vaccine will still work against the variant. Some scientists are instead worried.
The Covid vaccine is going to work also against the new variant
Since the new variant shares 99% of the proteins with the previous one, Ugur Sahin is confident that the Pfizer jab will also be efficient taking down the new strain.
“The likelihood that our vaccine works is relatively high. But we will know it is effective only if the experiment is done and we will need about two weeks from now to get the data.” He said.
Anyway, if adjustements have to be done, they will take around six weeks, excluding all regulatory iter, he added. Currently, the roll out of the Pfizer/BioNTech jab is happening in UK and US. However yesterday, December 21th, EMA gave its approval.
The new Covid strain is hitting hard in London and in the south-east of England. The variant is addressed as the responsible of the sharp increase of infections.