There are already some early studies that suggest vaccines are not quite as effective against the South African variant. What does this mean for us?
Duprex: What we absolutely know is that vaccines don’t go from being 90% effective to 0% effective overnight. They drift. But will they completely not work overnight? Very, very unlikely.
Moffa: All viruses mutate; mutations are to be expected. But with these variants, a lot of mutations occurred at once in targeting that spike protein. So the idea is we need to get people vaccinated as quickly as possible so that there’s less selective pressure for these variants to continue to flourish.
Duprex: This is why we can’t keep all of our eggs in one basket. This is why we need all of the people who are developing other ways to make vaccines because first may not be best and first may not be the one that is used to treat people in all of the parts of the world.
What do you think is going to be the bigger challenge going forward: Refining the vaccine technology or getting the public health message out and convincing people to take the vaccine?
Duprex: Both of these will be interesting challenges. It’s very, very important for trusted messengers to communicate both nationally and locally why we believe vaccines work and to dispel many of the myths, the unsubstantiated Twitter-based, Facebook-based myths surrounding vaccinations that just don’t have any fact or substance.
Moffa: Don’t trust things you read. It doesn’t alter your DNA. It doesn’t make you infertile. It doesn’t cause disease. There’s no Bill Gates microchip. It’s very safe and very effective.
Oliver Morrison is PublicSource’s environment and health reporter. He can be reached at oliver@publicsource.org or on Twitter @ORMorrison.