[set fair (OP)]

The UK variant has a change in the part of the spike which binds to our cells. Doesn't that mean that antibodies induced by existing vaccines don't neutralise the new variant? The other antibodies may hamper the new variant but they can't stop it entering our cells.

I see Astrazenica is already planning a new vaccine. I presume this will be relatively swift... but there are at least two other variants of concern which are spreading fast bringing in the possibility of original antigenic sin, which can (but won't nescessarily) lead to the virus becoming even nastier.

[Kryptid]

Doesn't that mean that antibodies induced by existing vaccines don't neutralise the new variant?

That would depend upon how different it is.

[chris]

Researchers are tackling this in several ways. The most obvious is that they take samples of the mutant viruses, mix them with antibodies made by people who have been vaccinated and then test if the viruses can still grow in culture. If they can, they've evolved beyond the protective effect of the vaccine. The second approach being used is to engineer the changes detected in the mutants into viruses grown in the laboratory to test individually whether the changes affect the immune recognition of the viruses. The third way is that scientists make models of the virus and alter them to reflect the mutations and look at how this changes the shape of the virus and by how much.

So far, these sorts of experiments are suggesting that the immunity conferred by the vaccine will still be protective against the viral variants.