COVID Vaccines Still Work Against Mutant, Researchers Find
Source: AP News
New research from France adds to evidence that widely used COVID-19 vaccines still offer strong protection against a coronavirus mutant that is spreading rapidly around the world and now is the most prevalent variant in the U.S. The delta variant is surging through populations with low vaccination rates.
On Thursday, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said that's leading to "two truths" -- highly immunized swaths of America are getting back to normal while hospitalizations are rising in other places.
"This rapid rise is troubling," she said: A few weeks ago the delta variant accounted for just over a quarter of new U.S. cases, but it now accounts for just over 50% -- and in some places, such as parts of the Midwest, as much as 80%.
Researchers from France's Pasteur Institute reported new evidence Thursday that full vaccination is critical. In laboratory tests, blood from several dozen people given their first dose of the Pfizer or AstraZeneca vaccines "barely inhibited" the delta variant, the team reported in the journal Nature...
Read more: https://apnews.com/article/europe-coronavirus-pandemic-science-health-34c3f2536747a7c08980d7359a8de70c
Read the rest of the article..
_________
Also: 'New study on delta variant reveals importance of receiving both vaccine shots, highlights challenges posed by mutations,' -Ed, Washington Post, July 8, 2021,
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/delta-variant-vaccines/2021/07/08/05b1bc5e-df75-11eb-ae31-6b7c5c34f0d6_story.html
New laboratory research on the swiftly spreading delta variant of the coronavirus is highlighting the threats posed by viral mutations, adding urgency to calls to accelerate vaccination efforts across the planet.
A peer-reviewed report from scientists in France, published Thursday in the journal Nature, found that the delta variant has mutations that allow it to evade some of the neutralizing antibodies produced by vaccines or by a natural infection. A single shot of a 2-dose vaccine “barely” offers any protection.
But the experiments found that fully vaccinated people — with the recommended regimen of 2 shots of the Pfizer-BioNTech or AstraZeneca vaccine — should retain significant protection against the delta variant. That echoes another report written by a collaboration of scientists in the U.S. and published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine.
The bottom line is that, in a time when the delta variant is rapidly gaining traction — it now accounts for a majority of new infections in the U.S., according to the latest estimate from the CDC — full vaccination offers a much better firewall against infection than partial vaccination. “Please, get vaccinated. It will protect you against the surging of the delta variant,” Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said Thursday at a White House coronavirus briefing...
= new reply since forum marked as read
94.1% effective...I've seen reported.
