This Could Be the Only Way to End the COVID-19 Pandemic for Good
The new strain of corona viruslike all viruses, mutate and evolve. Fast. One variant after another. Subvariable between variants.
Viruses are positive. But our effort to stop it is quick reply. Thirty-four months later Pandemic caused by covid-19We still haven’t found a way to overcome the virus — and give people immunity that can last even as the virus evolves.
That must change, experts told The Daily Beast. And there are so many ways maybe change, if we can focus our resources.
Broadly effective nasal vaccines provide long-lasting immunity. Common vaccines that work against present and future variations. Or, at least, faster ways to launch new boosters.
But even the best new drug is useless if people don’t take it. The public’s willingness to vaccinate, rather than the availability of some new and better vaccines, may be the main reason we continue to lag behind the virus.
“How do we get out of Groundhog’s Day ring?” University of Nebraska Medical Center infectious disease specialist James Lawler asked, referencing Bill Murray’s 1993 comedy about a man who gets stuck on a repetitive day. “I’m not sure we’ll do it quickly.”
The new coronavirus has mutated steadily since it first jumped from animals to humans in China in late 2019. A year later, early forms of the virus gave way to a more severe variant, Delta. , which was in turn replaced by the more contagious Variant Omicron and its successors – BA.1, BA.2, BA.4 and BA.5 – starting last fall.
All major and minor variants have changes to the mutant protein, the part of the virus that helps it attach to and infect our cells. Recently, more and more mutations appear on other parts of the virusalso.
That’s right, more than two-thirds of the world’s 7.8 billion people are at least partially vaccinated. Billions of people have new natural antibodies from recent infections. This immune wall has prevented the worst outcomes. Hospitalizations and deaths have fallen from their most recent peak in February.
But there is no indication that the SARS-CoV-2 virus is slowing down. New variations are coming as mutations pile up. Anticipating a future where COVID is more or less a constant problem, health officials around the world are trying to devise strategies not for defeat virus, but manage it.
US President Joe Biden is starting to treat COVID as an annual problem, like the flu. On Tuesday, Biden encouraged Americans to use the new messenger RNA boosters that vaccine makers Pfizer and Moderna have designed specifically for Omicron and its sub-variants.
Biden announced there will be more boosters for specific variants. Older brother speak. “Just like your annual flu shot, you should get it sometime between Labor Day and Halloween.”
But there is a problem with the annual approach to the COVID mutation. Antibodies from even the best mRNA vaccines tend to fade after about 4 months. If you only get a health boost once a year, you can be protected for up to eight months at a time.
Probably. The reality is, we don’t know for sure how effectively – and for how long – the new boosters will work. “We still need this information to know if it’s a viable strategy,” Peter Hotez, an expert in vaccine development at Baylor College, told The Daily Beast.
Equally problematic, health officials and the pharmaceutical industry are now pursuing variations — creating new boosters based on whichever form of the virus is dominant at the time. But it took months to refine the vaccine, get permission from health officials in each of the nearly 200 countries, and then manufacture and distribute doses.
“I’m really confused by the widely held assumption that the future of the pandemic is bright.“
We are moving slower than the virus. A new variant can develop over a period of just a few months. But it took almost a year to bring an Omicron-specific booster to market. There is a risk that some new variant may have so many mutations that it avoids antibodies from vaccines designed for the previous variant. In that case, an annual approach to strengthening could result in an even longer protection gap.
Experts told The Daily Beast there are several ways to catch the virus. Industry can create new boosters faster — and government regulators can approve them faster.
Another approach is to inhale a vaccine instead of injecting it. Nasal vaccines may promote a broader and longer-lasting immune response, by targeting the parts of the body — the nose and throat — where SARS-CoV-2 prefers to reside before it spreads to the lungs. and other agencies.
There is also the prospect of a universal “pan-coronavirus” vaccine designed to confer immunity against SARS-CoV-2. and related coronavirus, of which there are dozens.
These universal antibodies may be slightly less effective than single-virus antibodies, but somewhat impaired immunity will be maintained even with a specific virus can be transformed into a completely different form. Barton Haynes, an immunologist at Duke University’s Human Vaccine Institute, who has been working on an RNA virus like CoV-2, can selectively look for runaway mutants.
There are several nasal vaccines in development, including one at the University of Iowa — and about a dozen common vaccines are also in development. The two leading efforts are at the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations in Norway and the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
But all of those efforts depend in part on government support. And the country with the deepest pockets, the United States, closing the wallet after years of generous support for COVID research.
A faster ramp-up will also depend on government funding – as well as major reforms to the licensing process in countries where regulators tend to take the lead. Again, that means that the United States, a country, is not necessarily known for its efficiency in governance.
But there is an even bigger obstacle. Use of vaccines and boosters has skyrocketed worldwide as the pandemic enters its fourth year and fatigue sets in. Even if the industry rolls out a new booster every few months and regulators quickly approve it, will enough users be fast enough to slow the transmission of the virus?
Lawler says he’s skeptical. “The problem is that we will probably be very poorly receptive to new vaccines. Each booster dose has progressively decreased absorption. “
Government messages can be helpful, but that also depends on funding becoming scarcer. “We need an advocacy program to get people to accept boosters every year or on a regular basis, but so far that hasn’t happened,” Hotez said.
So the world is starting to adopt an annual approach to COVID, but without the tools to ensure an annual strategy works. That’s not necessarily a big deal right now, as billions of people still have antibodies from a previous infection.
But as those antibodies fade, we are faced with a choice. Make antibodies with a better and faster vaccine, or endure another huge wave of infections.
The alternative — pretending COVID is going away — is naive. “I’m really confused by the widely held assumption that the future of the pandemic is bright,” Lawler said. “This echoes the exact foresight flaws we have shown over the past two years. I think I should be studying now, but we don’t.”