Fauci warns of 'more ominous' COVID-19 strains from Brazil and South Africa and says US is looking very closely at whether 'the mutations lessen impact of vaccine' - as he reveals Johnson & Johnson and Oxford shots are 'weeks away from approval'

 Dr. Anthony Fauci says that public health officials are taking contagious mutations of the coronavirus ‘very seriously’ including ‘more ominous’ strains seen in Brazil and South Africa, though help could be on the way in the form of two new vaccines.

Fauci, one of the nation’s foremost experts on infectious diseases, added that America was ‘weeks away, not months away’ from granting emergency use authorization of two new COVID-19 vaccines.

He told NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday that he was confident President-elect Joe Biden could deliver on his pledge to vaccinate 100 million people in the first 100 days of his term in office, which begins on Wednesday.

Since last month’s rollout of the Pfizer BioNTech and Modern vaccines, the United States has struggled to get more of its population inoculated.

Complicating matters is a surge in coronavirus cases that is being compounded by new mutations.

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Dr. Anthony Fauci told Meet the Press on Sunday that public health officials are taking contagious mutations of the coronavirus ‘very seriously’ including ‘more ominous’ strains seen in Brazil and South Africa

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A third 'more infectious' strain of coronavirus similar to the British and South African variants has been identified after mutating in Brazil. The above file photo from last year shows the original SARS-CoV-2 virus as seen from an electron microscope

‘You don’t want people to panic,’ Fauci told Meet the Press on Sunday morning.

‘But ... people need to realize, there’s more than one mutant strain.

‘There’s one from the U.K that’s essentially dominated, that’s the one that is actually seen in the United States.

‘There’s another more ominous one in South Africa and Brazil.

‘We’re looking at all of them very, very carefully.’

Fauci said that while the new strains do not appear to be more virulent, they are more contagious, which means more people will get sick.

'The more cases you have, the more hospitalizations you have ... the more deaths you’re going to have,' said Fauci.

The important question is, “does that mutation lessen the impact of the vaccine,” Fauci said. 

'If it does ... then we’re going to have to make some modifications.' 

A third 'more infectious' strain of coronavirus similar to the British and South African variants has been identified after mutating in Brazil. 

The mutated variant of Covid was discovered in Tokyo, Japan last week in four people who had arrived on a flight from South America.

Scientists have said that the strain has similarities to those of the highly contagious variants found in England and South Africa. 

Namely, it has a genetic mutation called N501Y, which changes the shape of the spike proteins found on the outside of the virus. 

The mutation makes Covid more able to latch onto the receptors inside the body that it targets, meaning it makes it past the body's natural defences more often.

People who are exposed to the virus therefore become infected more often than they would if the other person was infected with an older, less contagious strain. However, there is no evidence to suggest the mutation makes the virus more deadly. 

A World Health Organization report on the variant last week said: 'The variant was identified when whole-genome sequencing was conducted on samples from 4 travelers from Brazil who were tested at the airport.

'Through our regional offices, we are working with both Japanese and Brazilian authorities to evaluate the significance of these findings. 

'We are also working with our Viral Evolution Working Group to assess the significance of this, and if this variant as well as others identified in recent months result in changes in transmissibility, clinical presentation or severity, or if they impact on countermeasures, including diagnostics, therapeutics and vaccines. 

'The same comprehensive approach to controlling Covid-19 works against these variants. At an individual level, protective measures work for all identified variants: physical distancing, wearing a mask, keeping rooms well ventilated, avoiding crowds, cleaning hands, and coughing into a bent elbow or tissue.'    

The new variants from South Africa and Brazil have the world on edge because they may not respond as well to vaccines, but they are still relatively rare.  

A new variant in Brazil was first identified in Rio de Janeiro, the sprawling but densely populated city on the country's seaside in October. 

At first, it was mostly isolated to the city, but already driving cases and infections  back again in the hard-hit city, which has seen 470,138 cases to-date. 

But, by December 23, the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro researchers who discovered it were becoming concerned.  

'The significant increase in the frequency of this lineage raises concerns about public health management and the need for genomic surveillance during the second wave of infections,' they wrote. 

At the time, it was clear that the variant was becoming more common, but how exactly it differed an might be more dangerous wasn't clear. 

But by December 26, the potential risks of its mutations were becoming clearer.  

It is too early on in the variant's discovery for politicians or scientists to be confident about how the changes to the virus will affect outbreaks. 

One of the new, more infectious variants has already become dominant in Columbus, Ohio, where it was discovered. 

This unique US variant has three mutations not seen in the others from the UK and South Africa.

So far, this homegrown variant has been seen in about 20 samples since Ohio State University (OSU) scientists first detected it in December. It's now present in most of the samples they are sequencing.

A second variant has mutations identical to the UK variants, but arose completely independently on American soil, according to Ohio State University scientists. Just one person with this variant has been found.

'We are now in a period where the virus is changing quite substantially...so we are concerned,' Dr Daniel Jones, one of the Ohio State University (OSU) scientists involved in the discovery, told local press.

It comes after Dr Deborah Birx warned over the weekend that the patter of COVID-19 case spikes suggested the US could already have its own 50 percent more infectious 'super-covid' variant.

Scientists are quite sure both American variants are more infectious, but don't know yet whether they will be immune to vaccines. 

Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said on Sunday that Biden's goal of delivering 100 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine within the first 100 days of his presidency 'is absolutely a doable thing.'

He  said two new vaccines under development by AstraZeneca and Johnson &Johnson could 'very soon' be presented to US regulators for approval, which would increase the pace of vaccinations. 

'We're weeks away, not months away, for sure,' he said.

He said more vaccinations - coupled with mask-wearing and avoiding crowds - would be the best way for the United States to tackle a new, more infectious strain of the coronavirus.

'If we can get the overwhelming majority of the population vaccinated, we'd be in very good shape and could beat even the mutant,' he said.

Fauci's remarks came amid criticism of the pace at which the United States is administering vaccines for a disease that has killed more than 390,000 people in the country. 

About 13.7 million Americans have so far been vaccinated, some 6 million shy of the number that President Donald Trump's administration hoped would have received injections by the end of 2020, according to Bloomberg.

Biden has said ramping up the pace of vaccinations will be one of his top priorities when he takes office on Wednesday.

'One thing that's clear is that the issue of getting 100 million doses in the first 100 days is absolutely a doable thing'" Fauci said. 

'The feasibility of his goal is absolutely clear. There's no doubt about that, that that can be done.'