New data raises fears coronavirus may be learning to resist vaccines

City of Tshwane’s Special Infection Unit Leading Emergency Care practitioners push the isolation chamber equipped with a negative pressure filtration system used to transport positive COVID-19 patients before starting their night shift at the Hatfield Emergency Station, in Pretoria, on Dec. 28, 2020. ((PHILL MAGAKOE/AFP via Getty Images)

by: Los Angeles Times

Posted: Jan 29, 2021 / 10:58 PM PST

Updated: Jan 29, 2021 / 10:58 PM PST

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New data showing that two COVID-19 vaccines are far less effective in South Africa than in other places they were tested have heightened fears that the coronavirus is quickly finding ways to elude the world’s most powerful tools to contain it.

The U.S. company Novavax reported this week that while its vaccine was nearly 90% effective in clinical trials conducted in Britain, the figure fell to 49% in South Africa — and that nearly all the infections the company analyzed in South Africa were the B.1.351 variant that emerged there late last year and has spread to the United States and at least 30 other countries.

Johnson & Johnson announced Friday that its new shot was 72% effective against preventing moderate or severe illness in the United States, compared with 66%in Latin America and 57% in South Africa.

Laboratory tests had already suggested that the two vaccines authorized in the United States — made by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna — trigger a smaller immune response to the South African variant.

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