Not surprisingly, the words COVID-19 mutations stir up worry. We have felt the very real consequences of the coronavirus pandemic , and the vaccine rollout brought an inkling of hope. Will new strains of the virus threaten that?

The good news: Experts dont believe so. Many remain hopeful the COVID vaccine will still help our bodies produce a helpful immune response against new strains of the SARS-Cov-2 virus (the virus causing COVID-19).

The expectation is that the vaccine should still provide some protection, said Deborah Fuller, a professor in the department of microbiology at the University of Washington School of Medicine.

If you get a certain mutation, its possible the level of efficacy could decline a little bit, Fuller continued. But the efficacy level the vaccines might drop to still could do a fairly good job of protecting people from COVID-19, he said.

New data suggests that the Pfizer vaccine is still pretty effective against the newer, more contagious strains discovered in South Africa and the United Kingdom (but you should be fully vaccinated with both shots to reap the benefits). The Moderna vaccine is similar, but the company is testing booster shots right now out of an abundance of caution should there need to be an updated vaccine, according to Anthony Fauci, the nations top infectious disease expert . The one-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine conducted trials when the newer variants were already circulating , and data suggests it still held up particularly against hospitalization or death .

So, all in all, no reason to completely panic yet. But what about newer, future strains? Heres what else to know about the vaccines and mutations of the virus that may pop up:

The vaccine triggers a release of many different types of antibodies.

When the COVID-19 vaccine enters your body, it induces the body to produce two kinds of immune responses, explained Paula Cannon, a professor of molecular microbiology and immunology at the University of Southern Californias Keck School of Medicine. This primes the body to enact these responses whenever it is exposed to the spike protein on the surface of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

Cannon said the reason scientists expect the vaccine to still work to some degree is because these immune responses are polyclonal. Simply put, this means there are built-in backup plans. The vaccine prompts production of multiple antibodies to target different regions of the spike protein.

Even if one part of the spike protein changed slightly, and the antibody that had latched on to this part of the spike protein could no longer recognize it, there are still tens of hundreds of other antibodies that can stick onto different parts of the spike protein, and still coat it and stop it from working, Cannon explained. It still looks to the immune system like the same spike protein.