Skip to content
Subscriber Only
Opinion
Sam Fazeli

Covid Explosion in Denmark’s Mink Is Danger Sign for Vaccines

Coronavirus mutations among Danish mink don’t mean vaccines won’t work, but they stand as a warning of what might happen if we don’t stop the spread.

On its journey from Chinese bats to humans to mink and back to humans, the coronavirus has mutated along the way. 

On its journey from Chinese bats to humans to mink and back to humans, the coronavirus has mutated along the way. 

Photographer: Ole Jensen/Getty Images Europe
By

The fight against Covid-19 got a big boost this week, with the Pfizer Inc.-BioNTech SE vaccine showing much better-than-expected effectiveness in preventing disease in its first readout and Eli Lilly & Co.’s therapeutic antibody getting an Emergency Use Authorization from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Other vaccines and treatments are likely to follow with similarly positive data. So far so good.

But exactly how jubilant should we be? Answering this question depends in large measure on how quickly the virus mutates and finds a way to bypass vaccines and other approved therapies. How quickly it mutates, in turn, depends on our ability to slow the spread through responsible mitigation measures.