1/4 The statement from @Surgeon_General VADM Jerome M. Adams in @FaceTheNation about this novel UK strain and vaccination clarify that: "Right now there is not an indication that is going to hurt our ability to vaccinating people". https://twitter.com/FaceTheNation/status/1340686107793612800

2/4 It is unlikely that the virus would mutate to avoid T cell recognition. Our data https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.12.08.416750v1 shows that responses recognize multiple antigens and tens of CD4 and CD8 epitopes, different in each individual

3/4 Within spike the response is mediated by multiple T cell epitopes. Only one mutation (Y144D) described in the novel UK variant for the spike protein affects CD4 epitopes (two epitopes out of 92 we identified).

4/4 Most mutations are not in the RBD region crucial for neutralization; 501 mutation is in the RBD but not a prominent site of neutralizing antibodies. More antibody neutralization studies are needed to confirm and extend the limited data.