The plural ‘variants’ in the title is a bit misleading. Only one of the four viruses they tested is one we are actually concerned about at this time. The first

The plural ‘variants’ in the title is a bit misleading. Only one of the four viruses they tested is one we are actually concerned about at this time. The first is the original virus, which was displaced by the second early in the pandemic and against which vaccines are already known to be effective. The third one is the UK variant, which is of interest and the fourth is an artificial virus with a single mutation of interest, which doesn’t circulate in nature. This is all good but the study doesn’t add anything that wasn’t already known. It appears that better funded groups at the NIH, UTMB, Fred Hutch and Columbia beat them to the goal and to publication in the even more prestigious publications like NEJM and Nature. In any case, reproducing important research is a laudable and underrated goal. However, I would suggest a more modest title - ‘Study adds to data for vaccines’ effectiveness against the UK variant of SARS-COV-2’. There are other variants - Brazilian, South African, Californian, New York, etc - which need to be studied in more detail. There are already data from the aforementioned research groups for at least some of these variants that suggest that vaccines will continue to be at least partially effective.