4 ms·
Are you sure about #3? That vast majority of cases now are Omicron, so new variants are far more likely to branch off of Omicron than an earlier strain. There
by tempestn 5y ago
Are you sure about #3? That vast majority of cases now are Omicron, so new variants are far more likely to branch off of Omicron than an earlier strain. Therefore I can't imagine how a vaccine targeting the original spike protein would be expected to be more effective than one targeting the spike protein from Omicron against new variants.
- samus 5y agoLet's say we wait until only 1 out of 10000 cases world-wide is caused by a non-Omicron strain. Then, an Omikron-specific booster would be worth it. Otherwise, we are just playing whack-a-mole with other strains.
- jagger27 5y agoWhat if we had multivalent mRNA vaccines like the HPV vaccine? Gardasil first covered three different strains, then later was bumped to nine, hence Gardasil-9. It doesn’t have to be all or nothing.
- samus 5y agoHPV viruses are DNA viruses, which means they evolve way slower than Corona viruses. This makes it easier to identify strains that are worth developing a vaccine against. Also, the mRNA technology and/or the production lines are probably not yet capable of producing multivalent vaccines.
- jagger27 5y agoA quick Google for "multivalent covid vaccine" shows trials in progress and articles from as early as 2021, so I'd say there's progress happening here.
- samus 5y agoGood news!!
- astrange 5y agoThere are some in development, but they don't use mRNA. https://www.technologynetworks.com/vaccines/articles/the-hunt-for-a-pan-coronavirus-vaccine-358132 https://www.technologynetworks.com/vaccines/articles/the-hun...
- passivate 5y ago> Therefore I can't imagine how a vaccine targeting the original spike protein would be expected to be more effective than one targeting the spike protein from Omicron against new variants. Well, besides imagining, we're also doing science, so what does the data that you've seen say?
- tempestn 5y agoIs there data out there comparing variant-specific vaccines to the original in their effectiveness against derivative variants? I haven't seen anything like that. Perhaps there is a reason the original vaccine would be expected to be more broadly effective, as my parent said. It's not intuitive to me, but that doesn't mean it's wrong. Hence my question.
- passivate 5y agoMy point was that our human body doesn't work by rhetorical reasoning or intuition. There are often things we discover about our immune system that are counter intuitive - for e.g. Using specially developed & formulated vaccines to teach the body to suppress immune response towards antigens (via Treg cells), rather than to neutralize them which is what most vaccines aim to do. Specifically I was objecting to "Given X, we wouldn't expect Y to happen" aspect of your argument. Its never so simple with the human body! It works in many other domains, and so as a former programmer myself I have to catch myself trying to apply such reasoning to biological systems which can't be modeled like that.
- orra 5y agoOmicron branched off the original lineage IIRC, not Delta nor Beta. So, no, we can’t make that assumption.
- tempestn 5y agoI'm not saying it's a certainty, just a strong likelihood.
- shawabawa3 5y agoOne other consideration is that Omicron is significantly milder than previous variants Perhaps there's a fear that an Omicron targeted vaccine would allow a more deadly variant to take over again