332 - COVID-19 Research Update: How Well COVID-19 Vaccines Work Against Variants

In this episode, Dr. Josh Sharfstein talks with Hopkins researchers who break down three papers looking at the effectiveness of different COVID-19 vaccines against variants of concern. Carli Jones, a graduate student at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, talks about some good news from a study looking at the effectiveness of Pfizer's vaccine against the variants found in the UK and South Africa. Greg Rosen, a PhD candidate, discusses a preprint study that assesses the effectiveness of the Chinese CoronaVac vaccine against the variant identified in Brazil. Dr. Nikolas Wada talks about a lab-based study assessing the potential effectiveness of mRNA vaccines against the B.1.617 variant discovered in India. These researchers are part of the Hopkins novel coronavirus research consortium, with many summaries of new studies available at http://ncrc.jhsph.edu.