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A Pfizer Inc. laboratory study found that coronavirus mutations identified in the U.K. and South Africa had only small impacts on the effectiveness of antibodies generated by the company’s Covid-19 vaccine. The antibodies were slightly less effective against mutations in the variant identified in South Africa, according to the study. It was posted Wednesday on the online server bioRxiv, which publishes scientific papers before they have been peer-reviewed. (Hernandez, 127)

Pfizer and partner BioNTech are developing booster shots so that their COVID-19 vaccine Comirnaty can protect against new, highly contagious variants, Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said Tuesday, according to Bloomberg. “Every time a new variant comes up we should be able to test whether or not [our vaccine] is effective,” Bourla was quoted as saying. “Once we discover something that it is not as effective, we will very, very quickly be able to produce a booster dose that will be a small variation to the current vaccine.” (Liu, 1/27)

Federal health agencies are preparing for the possibility that the current COVID-19 vaccines might not be effective against future strains of the coronavirus, Anthony Fauci said Wednesday, but he has confidence that drug companies will be able to quickly change the formula. Speaking at an event hosted by The Hill, Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said the federally authorized vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna are effective against multiple strains that have been identified so far. (Weixel, 1/27)

A new strain of COVID-19 first found in the United Kingdom has been identified in one adult and two children in Alabama, the state's Department of Public Health announced Wednesday. The variant, first identified in the U.K. in late 2020, was found in two different Alabama counties: two cases in Montgomery County and one in Jefferson County. (Polus, 1/27)

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Wednesday it does not know if the new Covid-19 variants are causing more cases of a rare complication in children called multisystem inflammatory syndrome. Multisystem inflammatory syndrome (MIS-C) in children is a troubling complication of Covid-19 infection that can cause heart damage and typically shows up about three weeks after a child has been infected. Many MIS-C cases follow a Covid-19 infection that had no symptoms. (Christensen, 1/27)

On Tuesday, Paul Offit, the vaccine developer and a professor of pediatrics at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, dropped by, virtually, for a conversation with STAT+ subscribers. During the discussion, he addressed a question on everyone’s mind: How worried should we be about new variants of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19? (Herper, 1/27)

KHN: Can The US Keep Covid Variants In Check? Here’s What It Takes

The covid-19 variants that have emerged in the United Kingdom, Brazil, South Africa and now Southern California are eliciting two notably distinct responses from U.S. public health officials. First, broad concern. A variant that wreaked havoc in the U.K., leading to a spike in cases and hospitalizations, is surfacing in a growing number of places in the U.S. This week, another worrisome variant seen in Brazil surfaced in Minnesota. If these or other strains significantly change the way the virus transmits and attacks the body, as scientists fear they might, they could cause yet another prolonged surge in illness and death in the U.S., even as cases have begun to plateau and vaccines are rolling out. (Barry-Jester, 1/28)