Speaking on the topic of a vaccine-resistant Coronavirus on Fox News, Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said that the emergence of a vaccine-resistant coronavirus variant is not unlikely. However, when and if that happens, Pfizer has a plan prepared to counteract the new variant. According to the CEO, in less than three months, a new vaccine version could be developed to fight against a new COVID-19 strain. “We have built a process that within 95 days from the day that we identify a variant as a variant of concern, we will be able to have a vaccine tailor-made against this variant,” Bourla explained.
Until this point in time, scientists have not identified a variant that is immune to the COVID-19 vaccines. “Every time that a variant appears in the world, our scientists are getting their hands around it. And they are researching to see if this variant can escape the protection of our vaccine. We haven’t identified any yet, but we believe that it is likely that one day, one of them will emerge.”
The possibility of discovering a COVID variant that resists vaccines has been discussed before by other health experts. “These vaccines operate really well in protecting us from severe disease and death, but the big concern is that the next variant that might emerge — just a few mutations, potentially, away — could potentially evade our vaccines,” explained the director of the Center For Disease Control and Prevention, Rochelle Walensky. On the other hand, other experts such as virologist Angela Rasmussen from the University of Saskatchewan in Canada believe that it is not very likely that a new vaccine-resistant variant will emerge any time soon. “It would require so many mutations in the spike protein that this virus wouldn’t ‘work’ anymore,” she explained.
