Former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, MD, said Feb. 7 that Moderna and Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccines are likely to be about 20 percent less effective against variants of the coronavirus that were first discovered in South Africa and Brazil, The Hill reported.
But the vaccines will still offer significant protection against the virus variants, he said.
"The mRNA vaccines … are very efficacious. And so even if we see a reduction in the efficacy of those vaccines, and it may not be as profound with those vaccines, you're still getting very good protection with those vaccines," Dr. Gottlieb told CBS.
“We also may be able to develop in a timely fashion, maybe in four or six months, a consensus strain that bakes in a lot of the different variation that we're seeing to have boosters available for the fall. So I think that there is a reasonable chance that we're going to be able to stay ahead of this virus as it mutates," he added, according to The Hill.
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