Is a COVID-19 antigenic shift coming? Will a virus mutation cause all vaccines to be deemed ineffective?

I’ve been keeping an eye on the news, and reporters are saying that there is a possibility that there will be a “second wave” of COVID-19 in the Fall 2020. I don’t think that the people of our society can handle a so-called “second wave” of COVID-19. Everybody is wiped out from the first wave.

As for virus mutations, all viruses mutate. That is the norm, and according to Dr. John Rose, a senior research scientist in the department of pathology at Yale Medicine who’s helping develop a COVID-19 vaccine, “The sequences of the original [COVID-19] isolates from China are very close to those in viruses circulating in the U.S. and the rest of the world,” meaning that the virus hasn’t mutated that much or enough to make the virus deadlier or interfere with the efficacy of a vaccine.

Unlike the flu, which changes rapidly, COVID-19 mutates at a much slower pace. This increases the life-length of the immunity protection provided by a vaccine, but just how long people’s immunity will last is still not known.

Sources:
COVID-19 Will Mutate — What That Means For a Vaccine. https://www.healthline.com/health-news/what-to-know-about-mutation-and-covid-19#Just-how-long-will-immunity-last?. May 5 2020.