DON’T PANIC

BioNTech Says New Vaccine for Mutant Coronavirus Strain Would Only Take Weeks

The drugmaker says its vaccine will most likely work against the new strain, and, even if it doesn’t, it wouldn’t be too disastrous.

The announcement that Britain has identified a mutant coronavirus variant that appears to be much better at spreading itself has been met with panic around the world—but there is some reassuring news. BioNTech—the firm that created the first authorized COVID-19 vaccine in partnership with Pfizer—said Tuesday that its coronavirus vaccine will almost certainly still work against the new variant, and, even if it didn’t, a new version could be created within six weeks. “The likelihood that our vaccine will work is relatively high,” said CEO Ugur Sahin. He then explained that, if it’s discovered that the vaccine doesn’t work against the variant, they could simply replace one mutation with another while the main “messenger” molecule would remain the same. However, a tweaked vaccine may need to regain approval from medical regulators, which would cause further delay.