the line from the experts is that the vaccines might still prevent "severe illness" from contact with the variants.

but, severe illness is so rare that it would be almost impossible to tell if that's true or not without doing a rigorous study, which hasn't been done yet.

rather, the surface data seems to suggest that it's obvious that these new variants are evading existing immunity, which strongly suggests minimal efficacy regarding the existing vaccines.

indeed, the chinese - which seem to be at the forefront of this - are already looking at updating their existing vaccines. and, it's a matter of time before we catch up.