According to the top vaccine researcher at the US Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, scientists at the institute expect to know in the next few days if there's a concern that the COVID-19 vaccines might not work against a mutated variant of the virus that's rapidly spreading in parts of England, CNN reported on Monday.

Dr Nelson Michael, director of the Centre for Infectious Diseases Research at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, said that the Walter Reed scientists still expect the COVID-19 vaccine will be effective against this new virus variant.

Reportedly, on 17 December 2020, the Walter Reed team started examining genetic sequences of the new UK variant posted online by British researchers, with a computer analysis being done as a first step.

Michael said: "The computer analysis will allow us to gauge how much concern we should have", adding, "Other teams around the world are doing this analysis, too."

If the computer analysis shows there's a concern, then studies would need to be done in the laboratory and in animals to more definitively determine if the vaccine will work on this variant, CNN added.