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Be careful of fear-mongering headlines. Folks who study RNA viruses are not surprised that it mutated, because that is what they do. But you shouldn't panic. It doesn't mean our new vaccines won't work, & with the new tech, you can "print on demand" new vaccines quickly. https://twitter.com/Reuters/status/1341054245068550148
Covid is in no way like the flu in terms of what it does to the body and what the survival rate is, but one thing it does have in common is that it mutates fast. It is why you need a new flu shot each year. We may need a new Covid shot each year too. We already knew this.
The other thing about new viruses on the scene with higher death rates like Covid is that they tend to actually get milder with each mutation. Remember that viruses need live hosts to keep going; strains that kill off too many tend not to make it long in the wild.
My point: Unless you have a degree in medicine, odds are you won't be able to properly contextualize any medical news anyway, so leave it to the experts to handle this stuff and listen to your doctors. Don't panic unless they tell you to. Remember: Journalists aren't doctors!
Honestly, the better we get at testing, wearing masks, social distancing, quarentining, and vaccine-making, the less potential there is for spread. The vaccines that are coming out are looking really, really damn good. It uses only manufactured parts of the virus.
As the virus isn't grown in mRNA vaccines in cultures first before the vaccine is made with it, we can produce them wicked fast. One lab only needed 2 days to figure out a new vaccine with this new tech. It is amazing.
Because we won't have to wait so long for the cultures to build, we can more accurately pinpoint the mutations for the season and get a vaccine sooner. It takes months for us to grow enough flu virus to make a vaccine.
So basically we need around 6 months (give or take) to start the next flu season vaccine. Because so many strains are emerging at that point, scientists have to make educated guesses at what strains are going to dominate that year's flu season.
Sometimes they nail it; sometimes they don't. It is why the effectiveness of the vaccine varies so much year to year. With the mRNA vaccines, we get to skip the growing period. This means we can wait a few more months and know more about what strains will dominate.
There is no reason why this new, faster way of creating a vaccine (which doesn't use live or whole viruses but only some manufactured bits and pieces that can never reassemble into a "live" virus) can't happen with Covid. We will be able to pivot more quickly AND accurately.
So yes...mutations of Covid will happen. We already knew this. But they take a while to actually evolve. There is no reason our vaccines won't work on them, and if they don't, there is now no reason why we can't "print on demand" a new vaccine in as little as 3 months.
It is an exciting time for science! Please take every headline with a grain of salt, and discuss the Covid vaccine and virus with your doctor. They are the only ones qualified to give you medical advice! Listen to the experts!
Footnote: I really wish everyone had a live-in microbiologist. They really take the edge off the pandemic panic sometimes!
