COVID-19 Is Back: Are We "FLiRT"-ing With Another Disaster? – Life Science Leader Magazine

By David Dodd, CEO, GeoVax Labs, Inc.

Is anyone talking about COVID-19 anymore? The answer is yes.

In April, a group of new virus strains known as the FLiRT variants, based on the technical names of their two mutations, began to spread, followed in June by a variant known as LB.1. The FLiRT strains are subvariants ofOmicron, and together they accounted for the majority of COVID cases in the U.S. at the beginning of July.

This news comes after the variant JN.1 spread rapidly this year, indicating its either more transmissible, or just better at evading the immune system, according to health officials. The CDC reports COVID-19 is still claiming the lives of hundreds of Americans a week. Thankfully, the virus is not overwhelming our health systems anymore, due to the scientists, researchers and developers, and clinicians that brought the vaccines to the public in record time in less than a year to protect us.

The public health emergency has ended, but the WHO still calls COVID-19 a pandemic. As long as variants to SARS-CoV-2 continue to emerge, there remains a risk of a highly variant form causing epidemic life-threatening infections throughout the world. This is why with COVID-19, few would consider the current situation back to normal.

Yet one year after the Biden administration ended the COVID-19 public health emergency, the CDC estimates only 23% of adult Americans have received the updated 2023-24 COVID-19 vaccine, compared to approximately 80% who received the initial dose. Its safe to say vaccine apathy is rampant. Most people will tell you they are tired of playing catch up with vaccines, or they dont think the vaccines will protect them, even though the virus continues to evolve and poses a critical threat to various patient populations, especially those who are the most vulnerable.

People with compromised immune systems resulting from cancers, immune deficiency diseases, diabetes, kidney disease, autoimmune diseases, those with organ transplants, and other immune-depleting conditions are at extreme risk in their everyday lives.

In the U.S. alone, there are between 20-25 million adults, and worldwide over 250 million, for whom the currently authorized vaccines are inadequate due to underlying medical conditions. In fact, since the beginning of the pandemic, approximately 80% of deaths ascribed to COVID-19 were among those ages 60 and above, as well as those having compromised immune systems due to various medical conditions. For many of such populations, the threat of severe infection, hospitalization, and the risk of death remains.

Even for healthy patients, the COVID-19 vaccines require continued reconfiguration to address new variants, and their durability, which is unfortunately less than six-months. The emergence of new variants is difficult to predict, but scientists have estimated that over the next two years, we are likely to experience another Omicron-like wave. The COVID-19 vaccinations are the most important tool we have and are proven to reduce the risk of severe disease, hospitalization and death.

Getting ahead of COVID-19 means vaccine developers have to remain committed to updating the makeup of these vaccines, making sure they are administered efficiently, and sharing them globally as quickly as possible. The White House initiative, Project NextGen, was designed to coordinate a government effort aimed at accelerating the clinical development of new vaccines and therapies with the potential to provide more robust and durable protection. This initiative is focused on providing the public with vaccines and therapies that break the cycle of constantly having to continuously reconfigure vaccines and therapies in response to new variants. This means creating next-generation COVID-19 vaccines that address a breadth of virus strains, including variants yet to emerge.

Through Project NextGen, the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), a DHS agency, is dedicating five billion dollars to producing vaccines that are broader and more durable, including COVID-19 vaccine candidates that are delivered intranasally, orally, or have the potential to provide protective immunity to variants yet to emerge.

Project NextGen aims to ensure that next-generation safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines are brought to the public as quickly as possible and that they can be produced in a manner that meets the public needs. Vaccine candidates that have been funded thus far under Project NextGen include COVID-19 vaccines providing novel delivery such as intranasal (Codegenix; CastleVax) and oral (Vaxart), as well as providing increased variant coverage and greater durability (GeoVax; Gritstone).

We lost millions of people in the pandemic, and many millions more were left with long COVID. Our healthcare systems are fundamentally changed, and we are still learning how to augment and assess data for diseases, viruses, and other potential threats.

We are far from being in the clear with COVID-19. With nearly as many hospitalizations in January 2024 as in January 2023, COVID is not becoming milder, or fading away. The real question, then, is not whether COVID is still a pandemic, but how much COVID illness and death it will take to convince people that vaccinations still matter: perhaps more now than ever.

About The Author:

David Dodd is the CEO of GeoVax Labs, Inc. a clinical-stage biotechnology company developing novel vaccines for many of the worlds most threatening infectious diseases and therapies for solid tumor cancers. During his career, he has overseen the approval of over 10 NDAs, over 15 acquisitions/divestitures, in excess of $2.5 billion in financial transactions, and led over $5 billion in incremental enterprise growth.

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COVID-19 Is Back: Are We "FLiRT"-ing With Another Disaster? - Life Science Leader Magazine