But it also found that the vaccine is not as effective against the fast-spreading variant first discovered in South Africa, another setback in the global race to end a pandemic that has already killed more than 2.1 million people. That could be a problem for the United States, which hours earlier reported its first known cases of the contagious variant in two unrelated people in South Carolina. Novavax, which makes one of six vaccine candidates supported by Operation Warp Speed last summer, has been running trials in Britain, South Africa, the United States and Mexico. But in a small trial in South Africa, the efficacy rate dropped to just under 50 percent. The data also showed that many trial participants were infected with the variant even after they had already had Covid.

Source: New York Times January 28, 2021 21:05 UTC