While there’s always a worry that a vaccine won’t work if a virus mutates significantly, the Walter Reed scientists still expect the vaccine will be effective against this new variant, said Dr. Nelson Michael, director of the Center for Infectious Diseases Research at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research.

“It stands to reason that this mutation isn’t a threat, but you never know. We still have to be diligent and continue to look,” Michael said…

“The computer analysis will allow us to gauge how much concern we should have,” Michael said. “Other teams around the world are doing this analysis, too.”

If the computer analysis show there’s a concern, then studies would need to be done in the laboratory and in animals to more definitively determine if the vaccine will work on this variant.