Doctor’s warning for new Covid-19 strain as country begins rollout of triple jab plan

An incoming new variant of Covid-19 has experts concerned that vaccine production isn’t meeting the speed of the virus’ mutation.

Scientists are unsure how effective existing vaccines will be against a new variant of Covid-19 which has “lots of troubling mutations” and, genetically, is the most distant to the original strain.

The C. 1.2 variant, which was first detected in South Africa in May, could easily put existing coronavirus vaccines to shame if it becomes “the next big thing”, according to Harvard epidemiologist Dr Eric Liang Feigl-Ding.

“It’s got lots of troubling mutations and it’s the most mutative of all variants,” Dr Feigl-Ding told Today on Wednesday.

He said early indications didn’t necessarily suggest C. 1.2 would be more dangerous than existing strains, however it was deeply concerning how quickly it had mutated.

“It’s the fact that the virus is mutating so much faster than we expected,” he said.

Dr Eric Liang Feigl-Ding issued a grim warning about new Covid-19 variants. Picture: Today

“That means that for future variants, the Wuhan 1.0 vaccines need to be updated much faster. With the vaccines we have, we can’t just keep boosting, we have to adapt them and tailor them.”

He added that scientists were still uncertain how effective existing vaccines were in combating the C. 1.2 strain, which has been detected in Mauritius, Portugal, Switzerland, England, China, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and New Zealand.

“Vaccines work against hospitalisations and deaths really well,” he said, but he highlighted that there were more “breakthrough” cases with Delta than expected.

A breakthrough refers to somebody who contracts Covid-19 despite being vaccinated.

“And after six months it [the vaccine] does tend to wane a little bit,” he said.

Dr Feigl-Ding revealed his prediction on Nine’s Today program on Wednesday. Picture: Today

He said the rest of the world may need to consider the same approach adopted in Israel, where residents from October won’t be considered fully vaccinated unless they have three jabs.

“That approach, as much as it sucks, is the reality with the face of these new variants,” he said.

“This is why, the sooner we end it, the sooner we can stop dealing with these software upgrade patches we have with our vaccines.

“If we don’t pull together and end it fast, we’re going to be on this treadmill for a much longer time and nobody wants that.”

New variant could ‘die out’

While the C. 1.2 contains mutations similar to variants that have become “concerning”, there is a possibility it could eventually die out without having too big of an impact, according to virologist and lecturer in immunology and infectious diseases with the University of Sydney’s Central Clinical School, Dr Megan Steain.

“C.1.2 would have to be pretty good, pretty fit, and pretty fast to outcompete Delta at this stage,” Dr Steain told The Guardian.

“I think we’re still very much at a point where this could die out, the prevalence is really low.”

She said such was the case for the Beta variant, which showed early signs of being problematic, but ultimately didn’t “take hold”.

“That could easily still happen with C.1.2,” she said.