[user104658]

Originally Posted by Mystic Mock

Apparently the Vaccine is meant to be reasonably effective against the new strain.

But obviously we'll just have to wait and see.

Thus far it's thought to be individually just as effective against all currently known strains of Covid. The issue is that faster spread = more people need to be vaccinated for effective herd immunity (the first step to driving a virus out of circulation). But a vaccinated person (assuming it's effective and assuming they produce an immune response - remember that 5% to 10% of people won't) should be just as protected from this strain as they were from OG Covid.

Worth remembering that there were already multiple strains I suppose, and that the "Europe strain" (the one that most of Europe and the US have, thought to originate in Italy) was already faster-spreading than the original Chinese strain.

We don't know much about the newly discovered strain yet; there's always the possibility that it's weaker (in terms of symptoms and outcomes) than previous strains.