GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. -- A new COVID variant called B-A 2.86 has been spotted in 10 states, including Michigan.
David Dodd is GeoVax Chairman and C-E-O says it is just the latest mutation of the virus. He was a guest Wednesday on West Michigan's Morning News on WOOD Radio.
"They tend to be increasingly more evasive ... to the vaccines. But the severity is not as great. And they do get displaced within a month or so by another variant," Dodd said.
Dodd says the model of continually reconfiguring vaccines in response to the COVID virus mutations needs to be changed.
"The White House actually, under their project NextGen, are looking for more robust, more durable vaccines is focused on that, also," he said.
Dodd added that the best that can be done for now is to try and reconfigure what is out there, even though it is not very durable and has not been that successful. But he notes that it has, at least, reduced the severity that occurs, including the hospitalizations and mortalities that occur. But it will not prevent people from contracting the virus.
Dodd said the NextGen project is looking at altnerate vaccines, and GeoVax has a vaccine that was written about in a peer-reviewed journal last Friday.
"It shows that our vaccine holds up against all variants so far from the original Wuhan strain all the way through the Omicron XBB 1.5, which a month to a month-and-a-half-ago was the hot one that everyone was concerned about."
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