Every COVID-19 ‘Variant of Concern’ Found in Erie County

Various Western New York media outlets reported that UB scientists have detected that all of the COVID-19 variants identified as variants of concern by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are now present in Erie County. “The virus is still out there and it is different than what we started with,” said Jennifer A. Surtees, PhD, co-director of the UB’s Genome, Environment and Microbiome Community of Excellence and associate professor of biochemistry. “The great news is that all of the vaccines available in the U.S. — the Pfizer vaccine, the Moderna vaccine and the Johnson & Johnson vaccine — they all protect against all of the variants of concern.”