Have any of these variants shown to render the new vaccinnes ineffective?
Have any shown that they infect those recovered from a previous variant?
Yes, and yes. And that's what has made public health officials (and governments that listen to them) so worried.
The data is still preliminary, but from the data available, is appears the
South Africa variant is the one that is most worrisome. ALL the vaccines tested against the South Africa variant show that they are significantly less effective in protecting against the South Africa strain (exactly how much less depends on the vaccine and is hard to nail down, but it seems all of them are less effective, in some cases, a lot less). And, yes, there have been verified cases of people who had previously had COVID and had recovered from a previous strain (so were thought to have some natural immunity to COVID), who were infected again (and got sick again) from the South Africa strain. The South Africa strain appears to be just as infectious (very) and as deadly (somewhat more, exactly how much is TBD) as the other new fast-spreading strains (eg UK, Brazil). With the vaccines less effective against it, that's a bad combination.
As I said, the data is preliminary (we will know more as time passes, that's how science works) so it's not time to panic. But it is very concerning.
The Pfizer and Moderna two-shot vaccines (roughly 95% effective generally) have been shown to still provide very strong protection against the UK and Brazil (and Los Angeles and all the other identified) variants.
But not against the South Africa strain. The new one-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine (generally about 65-75% protective generally, IIRC) had a level of protection against the South Africa strain that officials have been describing as "disappointing" (I have not seen numbers, but it's not what everyone had been hoping for, because the J&J vaccine was hoped to be "the one", a game-changer because it's simple). There are no vaccines yet that work well against that South Africa strain, based on what I've seen.
On a more hopeful note: Moderna and Pfizer are both already working on a booster for their vaccines (which would be shot #3) to tweak protection for the South Africa strain. I have not heard any ETA for that, but they say "tweaking" their vaccines for such contingencies should be
relatively easy and fast (because they are MRNA vaccines - the J&J vaccine is a conventional one, so tweaking it would presumably take longer). But tweaks + testing still takes time so don't hold your breath expecting a tweaked vaccine right away.
My guess is that this (the news about lack of protection against the South Africa strain provided by existing vaccines) is one of the things that prompted Canadian PM Trudeau to impose the new Canadian travel restrictions -- those restrictions were imposed just a day or two before the news of the South Africa strain's resistance to the vaccines started to circulate widely in the general news. I suspect Canadian officials caught wind of the news early, and decided to move quickly. Expect to see more tightening of restrictions (and hopefully actual enforcement) from many jurisdictions in the coming days and weeks.
And lets hope the smart folks at the vaccine developers continue to work overtime and continue to have good success. I would hope that Pfizer and Moderna are getting every dime they need so they can stand-up production lines not just for the current vaccines, but also are getting set up to be able to quickly tweak and deliver updated variants as needed (because mutations are to be expected, and we will likely see more, until we wrestle the virus to the ground and crush it...that depends on vaccines
and getting people to behave responsibly).
Double-masking is with us and will be called for going forward. Take it seriously.
"We are in a national emergency. It's time we acted like it."
