US studies claim Pfizer, Moderna vaccines can fight New York COVID-19 Variant

Two new studies claimed that the Pfizer-BioNtech and Moderna vaccines can be effective against the New York COVID-19 Variant that is said to be keeping the infection numbers high in the city. The studies by the New York Grossman School of Medicine and the Rockefeller Institute are yet to be reviewed.

The Grossman School study results report that the effect of the vaccine-induced 'neutralizing antibodies' remain the same against the B.1.526 variant with only a "modest decrease" in efficiency.

The study also suggests that people who had been vaccinated seemed to show a better response to the virus than people who had been previously infected with COVID-19, leading scientists to speculate that the vaccine may provide a broader range of protection from mutated viruses.

"The take-home message is that the vaccines are going to work against the New York variant and the South African variant and the U.K. variant," said Nathan Landau, a virologist at N.Y.U.'s Grossman School of Medicine who led the study as quoted in the New York Times.

As of April, New York authorities had warned that the NY variant and the British variant B.1.351 were the most widely circulated in the area accounting for the majority of infections.