Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Invalid EmailThe new strain of Covid-19 has 17 mutations, scientists have discovered. Many of the changes have happened to the virus's spike protein, which it uses to latch onto human cells and cause illness. This is significant because most Covid-19 vaccines being developed, including the Pfizer jab that has already begun to be rolled out in the UK, are effective by targeting this protein. It is feared this could stop people becoming immune to coronavirus if they have been infected with a different strain than the vaccine can protect them against. Most vaccines work by training the immune system to recognise the virus's spike proteins and attack them when the virus tries to infect them.
