Vaccine Team Assures On New Covid Variant

The emergence in the United Kingdom (UK) of a variant of the COVID-19 virus has raised new fears around the world, but the German firm BioNTech which developed the Pfizer vaccine said it has “scientific confidence” its drug will also work on the variant.

- 

The proteins in the variant are 99 percent the same as those in the virus now spreading around the world, Dr. Ugur Sahin who developed the vaccine with his wife Dr. Ozlem Tureci said. There is zero evidence that there is an increase in severity from the variant, he said.

He added his team would need around two weeks to test its vaccine on the new variant and “the likelihood that our vaccine works is relatively high.” Should the vaccine need to be adjusted for the new variant, the company could do so in about six weeks, Dr. Sahin said.