Covid-19 vaccines might offer protection against severe disease even as coronavirus variants evolve to better allow continued transmission between people, the head of the Oxford Vaccine Group Andrew Pollard has said.

Asked how effective the Oxford/AstraZeneca will be against new variants, he said “they are making changes that allow them to avoid human immune responses, so that they can still transmit.”

“So, that does mean that it's likely over time that the virus will find ways of adapting so that can continue to pass between people,” he told BBC TV. “But that doesn't mean that we won't still have protection against severe disease ... The virus is much more about the virus being able to continue to survive, rather than trying to cause harm to us.”