The race between variants and vaccines is heating up.

I think what we learned early on as we started to see variants emerge was there was the

potential that this could happen, right?

Peter Marx heads the FDA's Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research.

He said in a webcast recently, the Food and Drug Administration is already thinking about

how to fast track new versions of existing vaccines if coronavirus variants make the old

versions less effective.

With the mRNA, it's very convenient because basically all you do is change a computer

program and you can change the vaccine.

He said some vaccines could be tweaked with relative ease and the FDA wouldn't have to

require a new round of large clinical trials.

We would intend to try to be pretty nimble with this so that we get these variants covered

as quickly as possible because it is clear that they can spread pretty quickly.

And in fact, just this week, scientists reported evidence of at least seven homegrown variants

here in the US.

That's an addition to variants from Brazil, South Africa and the UK.

So far, there's no indication that any of these variants would require a new vaccine.

You know that a line is crossed if you see people who are fully immunized with these vaccines

that nonetheless, when infected with a variant, are being hospitalized.

FDA advisor Dr. Paul Offit.

That's when the line gets crossed and the date that has not happened.

Consider this.

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