This Coronavirus Doesn't Change Quickly, And That's Good News For Vaccine Makers
A coronavirus vaccine could become ineffective if the virus were to undergo certain genetic changes. But so far, so good: Scientists see no evidence that's happening.
Scientists are monitoring the virus that causes COVID-19 for genetic changes that could make a vaccine ineffective. But so far, they're not seeing any.
"There's nothing alarming about the way the coronavirus is mutating or the speed at which it's mutating," says Emma Hodcroft, a molecular epidemiologist at the University of Basel in Switzerland. "We don't think this will be a problem [for vaccines] in the short term."
"To date, there have been very, a senior scientist at Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory. "And any mutations that we do see are likely not having an effect on the function of the virus itself."
