Thread by @sailorrooscout

Good mRNA vaccine news this morning! Ben Osborn, the UK head of Pfizer, said they do not expect to have to change their vaccine to handle SARS-CoV-2 variants B.1.1.17 and B.1.351 due to no drop in efficacy! Let’s talk about variants, vaccines, and why you shouldn’t panic. 🧵

Firstly, we can agree media response to the variants has been overblown and become a huge source of misinformation unfortunately. For some context: you are going to read and hear about a TON of variant viruses, because viruses mutate by nature. Not every single one is a concern.

While I know it’s scary and a lot is “unknown,” a couple of amino acids is not the same a whole whole new virus strain in the way that we’ve been taught to think about influenza. RNA viruses by nature mutate more readily than DNA viruses. Not to mention, SARS-CoV-2 doesn’t

necessarily mutate at a fast rate, it’s just transmitting a lot. What is happening, often times, as I have discussed before, is selective pressure. As the virus transmits it learns how to get better at transmitting. That’s why you might hear that the newest variant is circulating

faster than the last variant. They strive to alter their fitness by improving their rate of transmission. Their goal is to infect as many hosts as possible. But, don’t be panicked, as I said before, it will take a large amount of genetic diversity to completely make the

current vaccines useless and here is why: unlike monoclonal antibody therapies, vaccines (especially those utilizing the whole spike protein) make polyclonal antibody responses. This means that the antibodies you make after vaccination will be able to bind the coronavirus

spike in multiple places not just one. When these vaccines were developed, we decided to target the entire spike protein and smothered it with antibodies from every possible angle. So right here, you have strong neutralizing antibody titer data reassuring these mRNA vaccines will

work against these variants (that includes Moderna, of course). Even when we were faced with the D614G mutation we somewhat created a cushion effect, and it has worked out well in our favor in the face of these new variants and their efficacy against them.
biorxiv.org/content/10.110…

Next, we added this all to mRNA-elicited T-cell responses. If you have read my threads you can see I am a HUGE advocate of T-cells. Why? Because they’re what prevents us from experiencing severe disease and protect us from future variants.
See: nature.com/articles/d4158…

I also want to mention, it’s not just our mRNA vaccines that can claim prevention from severe disease and hospitalization- it’s ALL of the current vaccines. Data from J&J, Novavax, and AstraZeneca in areas where B.1.351 accounted for 95% of their viral strains demonstrated this.

Lastly, while data is still being collected we have plenty of reason to believe asymptomatic infection and therefore transmission can be reduced through our vaccines. I have a thread I am currently writing up on the subject and Novavax so get ready for some promising data.

So, in the end I don’t want anyone to panic about these variants. These will happen. What works in our favor is we have several vaccines that are effective against them, whether it’s through initial B-cell neutralizing antibody response, T-cell mediated immune response, or both.

I should mention. It’s not just the media. It’s a lot of experts I am disappointed in who have gotten addicted to attention and RTs. No, we aren’t facing an apocalypse. No, this isn’t going to last 10 years. The end of this year is looking bright and next year even brighter.

Should you need more information and context please do check out this thread.

https://twitter.com/sailorrooscout/status/1359946547887243265