New Beta variant escapes vaccine “immune protection”, starts talk of booster shots

As early as January 4, 2021, within weeks of the COVID-19 vaccine roll-out in the UK, their scientists expressed concerns that the new South African virus variant (501.V2) may render the new vaccines totally ineffective due to the spike protein mutations and “escape from immune protection”. [2]

The South African variant (B.1.351), later referred to as the Beta variant of concern (VOC), is thought to escape vaccine induced immunity.  The virus mutations in the spike protein region, the target site for all COVID-19 vaccines, is a concern and has already prompted talk about developing booster shots. [1, 3]

“Developing” implies the manufactures are looking to “tweak” the spike protein mRNA code, which technically would require more clinical trials.  They didn’t do this initially, boosters initially meant more jabs of the same Wuhan variant.