Coronavirus variants, like those found in the United Kingdom and South Africa, are ushering in a new stage of the pandemic, even as health officials around the world are racing to get people inoculated. Now, new studies from the Rockefeller University in New York and researchers abroad suggest that some of these variants pose a bigger risk to these brand-new vaccines than previously thought.

WNYC and Gothamist health and science editor Nsikan Akpan says that makes it more urgent to get shots in people's arms as quickly as possible.

"Our vaccines might have a shelf life," Akpan said. "They might only prove useful for a certain amount of time before we have to start from scratch, before we have to start logistics over, and rush out newly-updated vaccines."

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