HYDERABAD: A day after the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) announced that Covaxin fights the so-called double mutant, B.1.617, the city-based Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) said on Thursday that the Covishield vaccine, too, protects people from the new mutant. The “double mutant” is said to be responsible for the sudden spike in the number of cases in Maharashtra and other parts of the country. Scientists earlier feared that this “double mutant”, or B.1.617, may escape the immune system and thus vaccines may not offer protection from this strain of the novel coronavirus. However, studies by ICMR on Covaxin found that it offers protection from the new mutant.