U.S. immunologist Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, warned Sunday, Jan. 17, that variants of the Chinese communist virus emerging in South Africa and Brazil are more virulent, and they are now learning whether these variants will affect the effectiveness of currently available vaccines.
According to the New York Post, Fauci said they are taking a very close look at two new strains of the CCP virus that have emerged in Brazil, as well as the highly infectious CCP strain first discovered in the United Kingdom.
He said, “People need to realize that it’s not just one variant strain that has emerged, there’s one in the U.K., and there are more aggressive variants of the virus emerging in Brazil and South Africa.”
Forsythe said he is not to worry the public about fear, but medical experts are now taking these new strains very seriously and are getting a full picture of the threat these strains pose to humans.
He said, “The British have made it very clear that this strain that has emerged in the UK is highly infectious, but it is not very virulent. However, we have to be very careful because when there are more and more cases, even if those viruses are not very virulent when transmitted one-to-one and the virus is not too severe or even fatal, more infected patients means more and more hospitalizations.”
Fauci also said that their current concern is whether these variants will be resistant to commercially available vaccines. He said, “What we are currently looking at is whether this variant strain will weaken the effectiveness of the vaccine. If it weakens the efficacy of the vaccine, we would need to make some sort of adjustment to the vaccine.”
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