Future variants of coronavirus could bypass the current batch of vaccines, England's chief scientific adviser has warned.
Sir Patrick Vallance joined Boris Johnson and Prof Chris Whitty at a press conference at Downing Street today.
Asked how the government plans to tackle new strains of the virus in future, Sir Patrick said it was possible that some could 'get round' current vaccines.
But he added that existing vaccines were 'quite easy' to adjust to any changes.
Sir Patrick said: "In terms of other variants, it is possible that [they] will get round vaccines to some extent in the future, and some of them that are out there in the world now may well have more of an effect to bypass some of the existing immune system that’s come up in response to a vaccine or previous infection.
“We don’t know that but I think the vaccines themselves - the new types of vaccines- are really quite easy to adjust to changes in the virus.
"That is a big change in vaccine technology. It’s a very important advance.
"It’s essentially days to make a new starting point; weeks probably to get a new vaccine if needed, provided the regulators are happy with the approach. But that is very different from the past.
“It’s worth also remembering that flu changes year-on-year and that’s why you need a different flu vaccine each year.
"It’s a similar sort of problem that we have going forward. As the viruses change, how do you make sure that the vaccines adjusts accordingly over years….the vaccine that we have now is going to protect against the UK variant and is going to provide protection against the other."
Sir Patrick said that immunity to the current variant will be built on previous infection or vaccination.
He explained: “In terms of the vaccines, the evidence at the moment in terms of the UK variant is that it transmits more readily; there’s no obvious change in the disease course one way or the other, so there’s nothing to suggest there’s a change in disease severity in any way.
“And in terms of the immunity, everything looks as though this variant will be susceptible to the immune response that’s come about from a previous infection or from vaccines. There’s accumulating evidence to suggest that."
