Just as Connecticut eliminates all capacity limits on restaurants, offices, houses of worship and retail business, a third highly contagious COVID-19 variant has arrived in the state.
A Guilford resident tested positive for the Brazil variant, health officials said Thursday, the third new strain detected in the state. The UK and South African variants were previously identified.
“Variants are inevitable,” says Dr. Ulysses Wu, Hartford HealthCare’s System Director of Infection Disease and Chief Epidemiologist. “We are watching Darwinism evolution occur right in front of our eyes.”
The new strains inject both urgency and uncertainty into efforts to vaccinate the state’s population.
The Food and Drug Administration reported the new single-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine, despite being slightly less effective overall than the two-dose Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines at preventing all COVID-related illness, effectively protects against the United Kingdom and Brazil variants. Based on preliminary data, however, it could be less effective against the South African variant.
It’s possible neither the Pfizer-BioNTech nor the Moderna vaccine is as effective against the new variants. Yet both those vaccines use messenger RNA, or mRNA, technology that make them particularly nimble if protection against variants requires a booster shot. Because mRNA technology is based on the virus’ genome sequence, vaccines can be developed, adjusted and manufactured faster than previous vaccines. Moderna mapped out its COVID-19 vaccine within 48 hours of receiving the genome sequence from Chinese scientists in January 2020.
Making a booster for, say, the South African mutation would require dropping its genome sequence into the existing vaccine formula. Any new formulation, however, would need testing and approval by the Food and Drug Administration. But the FDA has said vaccines targeting the new variants would not need large clinical trials. Instead, much like the approval process for the annual flu vaccine, the pharmaceutical companies would submit new data showing the modified vaccine’s effectiveness and safety,
The Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines, the first using mRNA, direct our body’s cells to create a non-infectious form of the spike protein associated with the virus. When the immune system identifies these harmless versions of the spike protein, it creates antibodies to reject the virus. Once vaccinated, if you’re exposed to the actual COVID-19 virus your body’s immune system is prepared to fight.
Hartford HealthCare is now offering a choice of vaccines based on availability. For more information, click here.
Here’s a snapshot look at the three variants based on information from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention:
United Kingdom (known as B.1.1.7): This variant, with a large number of mutations, has been identified in the United States and many other countries. UK scientists in January found evidence that links the variant to a greater risk of death compared with other variants.
South Africa (B.1.351): Shares some mutations with the United KIngdom variant but, researchers say, emerged independently from the strain. First reported in the United States in late January. No evidence that it causes more severe illness.
Brazil (P.1): Initially identified in January in four travelers from Brazil during routine screening at Haneda airport outside Tokyo. This variant, which has 17 unique mutations, was first detected in the United States in late January. Early research indicates antibodies generated by a previous COVID-19 infection or a vaccine might be less effective against this strain.
Dr. Wu says the new variants should not alter the nation’s efforts to fight COVID-19.
“There is nothing we are going to do differently as we still hold to the same basic principles,” he said.
Those include:
- Do not relax. Maintain our procedures and vigilance. “There’s light at the end of the tunnel,” said Dr. Wu.
- Vaccinate.
- Wear a mask.
- Social distancing.
“The point of vaccination is not to prevent disease but to turn a deadly disease into a normal cold,” said Dr. Wu. “The more we can vaccinate, the quicker we can break the transmission.”