People who gained immunity — either through vaccination or exposure — against the original strain of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, also are likely to have some protection against the pathogen’s omicron variant. That’s because the mutations that led to the variant’s emergence aren’t found in the regions of the virus that stimulates one type of cellular immune response, says an international research team from Johns Hopkins Medicine, in collaboration with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and ImmunoScape, a U.S.-Singapore biotechnology company.