Originally Posted by
rickair7777
They tested it against the N501Y mutation (S. Africa and UK). They haven't gotten around to the E484K mutation yet.
But if necessary mRNA vaccines can be adjusted for new variants very quickly and easily, within weeks, and the article mentioned this. Also once the pandemic is under control there will be far fewer opportunities for mutation, so we should be able to keep up with it.
E484K appears to be an issue for some groups of people, possibly on a genetic basis. More work needed to sort it out.
In most cases, the mix of antibodies in the patients’ blood was able to attack and neutralize the mutants. The main exception was E484K and related mutations, which reduced the potency of some patients’ antibodies by a factor of 10. But other patients’ sera had no trouble fighting the mutant form, Bloom said.
The
results were posted recently but have not yet been peer-reviewed or published in a scientific journal. Bloom and his team are now working to evaluate the mutations’ impact on vaccine-induced immunity.
The three Washington cases with the E484K mutation were discovered during routine genome sequencing as part of a surveillance system for new variants, Roychoudhury explained. The sequences were submitted to a repository called
GISAID, where a researcher flagged the mutations.
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle...-hasnt-spread/