Coronavirus vaccines are key to preventing new mutations In Orange County, but it’s a race against time

“Right now, I feel relatively confident that the vaccines are going to protect people from most of the variants out there,” said UC Irvine epidemiologist and public health expert Sanghyuk Shin, [assistant professor of nursing], said in a phone interview last week. …  “One really alarming thing, especially with the schools opening up, is often we just think about school children about them being at lower risk — that may not be the case with some of these variants, including the B117 variant,” Shin said, adding that additional studies still need to be done.