Stone
1 min readJan 6, 2021

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Thanks for such an up-to-date reporting. South African variant, known as 501.V2 seems meaner than the original flavor & mutants #1-#2.

What is worrisome is that the mutation, again, landed in the Spike Protein (RBD) of COVID-19. This may affect antibody based vaccines such as AZN, but not Pfizer or Moderna's.

Even though Pfizer and Moderna's nanoparticle vaccine also targets the RBD region, it is an mRNA based vaccine while AZN is antibody based protein.

As far as I know, the mRNA target of both vaccines are not affected by mutations from the D614G, B.1.1.7. & 501.V2.

Even if future mutations land on nanoparticle mRNA based vaccine, it is easy to reformulate to keep up.

Antibodies, require starting from scratch. Scientists will have to redesign the peptide, inject into a host animal, culture the cells & use giants vats to produce the antibodies.

If you could provide a link to the graph, much appreciated. Thx.

Keep calm & carry on & listen to your doctor & scientists, but not necessarily your politicians.

https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/south-african-sars-cov-2-variant-alarms-scientists-68317

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