Moderna is exploring the possibility of an Omicron-specific vaccine booster

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https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/29/politics/joe-biden-omicron-variant-covid-19/index.html

Many unanswered questions remain

Moderna's Chief Medical Officer Dr. Paul Burton said Sunday that Americans should brace for several weeks of uncertainty as scientists and vaccine manufacturers investigate the transmissibility of the new variant, the level of illness that it causes and whether the antibodies produced in response to the current vaccines will be effective in thwarting it.

Moderna is exploring the possibility of an Omicron-specific vaccine booster should that become necessary, Burton said.

"This is a virus now with at least 50 mutations, many of them spanning the previous variants of concern, Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Delta. At least 30 mutations in the spike protein alone that we know lead to immune evasion and escape, and also increased replication," Burton said on CNN's "Newsroom." "This is a new wrench that has been thrown into the fight against Covid."

Brown University School of Public Health Dean Dr. Ashish Jha has warned that the data about transmissibility of the new variant has looked "worrisome" thus far, in part because it has taken off quickly in South Africa. He warned in a guest essay in The New York Times this weekend that there is no time to waste, because if it "turns out to be as contagious and immune-evasive as many experts worry it might be, waiting until all the facts are in will leave us hopelessly far behind."

In an interview on CNN's "Inside Politics" on Sunday, he explained that "we see all of these mutations in the spike protein in areas that our vaccines and our immune system target -- and that makes a lot of us concerned about immune evasion. We don't think that our vaccines are going to be rendered useless, but at the same time, we don't know how much of a hit the vaccines are going to take," he said.

Jha argued that the effect of the travel ban against foreign nationals from the eight African countries would be "modest at best" and urged the Biden administration ramp up genomic surveillance, work with vaccine makers to create Omicron-specific vaccines and to push for a more robust effort to get more people vaccinated in Africa.

Dr. Leana Wen, a CNN medical analyst who is the former Baltimore health commissioner, said she believed the travel restrictions for the eight countries were necessary but added that the Biden administration should go even further by quarantining and re-testing all international travelers. As the US allows permanent residents and American citizens to return from the African nations affected by the restrictions, she added, they should also be required to re-test and quarantine to prevent the variant from spreading.

"Otherwise, there are just too many loopholes and we're not really accomplishing our goal, which is to contain Omicron and try to prevent it from getting to this country, recognizing that it may already be in the US," she said.

Some of the sharpest criticism of the travel bans enforced by the US and other countries came Sunday from South African President Cyril Ramaphosa.

"These restrictions are completely unjustified and unfairly discriminate against our country and our southern African sister countries," Ramaphosa said in an address on Sunday. "The prohibition of travel is not informed by science, nor will it be effective in preventing the spread of this variant. The only thing the prohibition on travel will do is to further damage the economies of the affected countries and undermine their ability to respond to and also to recover from the pandemic."

Biden on Monday will have to answer those criticisms and whether there are more effective steps he can pursue against the new variant when he faces a nation looking for answers.