RE: Restrictions may be needed in winter 20216 Jan 2021 20:52
I think the only thing that will stop us now is the new variant they seem to think might be resistant to the vaccines. It's in the financial times this evening so I took an extract below, but if that's deemed incorrect then hopefully we'll continue the move upwards. It doesn't seem the market was spooked by the rumour though which is good.
The new coronavirus variant linked to a surge in Covid-19 cases in South Africa is not only more infectious than previous forms of the virus but could make some vaccines less effective.
Scientists racing to understand the new strain said they still expected the current crop of approved vaccines to work but were worried that a specific mutation, also identified in a new variant in Brazil, could affect the way the virus responds.
“At this moment, we think that a vaccine could be a little less effective,” Professor Tulio de Oliveira, of the University of KwaZulu-Natal, who is leading South Africa’s scientific effort to understand the 501Y.V2 strain, told the Financial Times. “[But] between all the varieties of vaccines that are coming to the market, we still have strong belief that some of them will be very effective.”
The mutation in question, called E484K, changes the “receptor binding domain” — a key part of the spike protein that the virus uses to enter human cells. This is also an important site at which neutralising antibodies induced by infection or vaccination bind to the virus.
A team at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle has assessed the ability of antibodies taken from people previously infected with Sars-Cov-2 to neutralise various new strains of coronavirus.
Their study, released on Tuesday but not peer-reviewed, found that “emerging lineages in South Africa and Brazil carrying the E484K mutation will have greatly reduced susceptibility to neutralisation by the?.?.?.?serum antibodies of some individuals”. However, the effect was much stronger in some people than others, the paper said.
Prof de Oliveira’s team in South Africa have reached similar conclusions. “This finding about antibody neutralisation was highlighted very strongly in our paper,” he said. “There is a reason to be concerned.”
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