The C. 1.2 variant, which was first detected in South Africa in May, could easily put existing coronavirus vaccines to shame if it becomes “the next big thing”, according to Harvard epidemiologist Dr Eric Liang Feigl-Ding.

“It’s got lots of troubling mutations and it’s the most mutative of all variants,” Dr Feigl-Ding told Today on Wednesday.

He said early indications didn’t necessarily suggest C. 1.2 would be more dangerous than existing strains, however it was deeply concerning how quickly it had mutated.

“It’s the fact that the virus is mutating so much faster than we expected,” he said.

“That means that for future variants, the Wuhan 1.0 vaccines need to be updated much faster. With the vaccines we have, we can’t just keep boosting, we have to adapt them and tailor them.”

He added that scientists were still uncertain how effective existing vaccines were in combating the C. 1.2 strain, which has been detected in Mauritius, Portugal, Switzerland, England, China, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and New Zealand.

“Vaccines work against hospitalisations and deaths really well,” he said, but he highlighted that there were more “breakthrough” cases with Delta than expected.

A breakthrough refers to somebody who contracts Covid-19 despite being vaccinated.

“And after six months it [the vaccine] does tend to wane a little bit,” he said.

He said the rest of the world may need to consider the same approach adopted in Israel, where residents from October won’t be considered fully vaccinated unless they have three jabs.

“That approach, as much as it sucks, is the reality with the face of these new variants,” he said.

“This is why, the sooner we end it, the sooner we can stop dealing with these software upgrade patches we have with our vaccines.

“If we don’t pull together and end it fast, we’re going to be on this treadmill for a much longer time and nobody wants that.”