‘Good news’: Coronavirus vaccine will still protect against new U.K. variant, WHO says

The novel coronavirus vaccine should still work against the new variant of the virus spreading quickly in the United Kingdom. That’s “good news,” the World Health Organization said on Monday.

Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO technical lead for COVID-19, said the mutated variant may be more transmissible, but there is no evidence it would increase the “severity associated with this disease.”

“The U.K. has informed us that they don’t believe that there’s an impact on the vaccine. So that’s good news,” she said.

More to come. 

— With files from Reuters.