New COVID-19 vaccines are in the works, but how much will they help? – The Atlanta Journal Constitution

A vaccine dose that remains in the vial is 0% effective no matter what the clinical trial showed, Dr. Walter Orenstein, a former director at the Center for Disease Control and Preventions immunization program and a professor at the Emory Vaccine Center, said.

Two years after COVID vaccines started going into arms, they are still highly protective in warding off severe disease and hospitalization. Even so, the protection offered by COVID vaccines has been found to wane within a few months. According to the CDC, COVID vaccines are 91% effective in preventing hospitalization during the first two months but drop to 78% after four months. Booster shots were cleared by the FDA to extend the protection, but vaccine experts say the prospect of taking a booster two or more times a year will be challenging.

Its not a feasible strategy, said Dr. Glen Nowak, a UGA professor and expert in public health communications who spent 14 years at the CDC. We havent convinced many people that they should get one additional dose of the vaccine.

Vaccine experts said that any new vaccines that hit the market will need to require less frequent booster shots or tackle multiple viruses at the same time to gain traction among an increasingly shot-resistant country. Scientists said those are tall tasks to accomplish, especially as the coronavirus continues to mutate at a rapid pace.

Todays COVID vaccines are all based on the original version of the coronavirus.

However, the delta and omicron variants led to more breakthrough cases among vaccinated populations, expediting the need for new and improved vaccines.

That first omicron variant reminded everybody that you better keep doing research because this virus changes, Caplan said.

On Tuesday, Moderna announced that an updated version of its vaccine based on one of the coronavirus first mutations, the beta strain, was able to produce more antibodies capable of fighting several variants including omicron than todays booster shots.

Georgians are helping with that research. Dr. Lilly Immergluck, a vaccine trial unit co-director at Morehouse School of Medicine, is leading a clinical trial using updated versions of Modernas vaccine. She said theyre testing six different vaccines based on coronavirus variants, including beta, delta and omicron, to see how effective they are at preventing infection and serious illness over the next year.

Morehouse School of Medicine is among 24 sites across the U.S. participating in the clinical trial, and theyre recruiting participants through early May.

Dr. Baozhong Wang, a professor at Georgia States Institute for Biomedical Sciences, said updated vaccines are within the reach of modern science and can be ready by the end of this year.

The true issue will be determining what strains should be used as templates for updating the coronavirus booster shots a perennial problem for the seasonal influenza vaccine., Wang said in an email.

A new and even more effective vaccine doesnt solve a key obstacle: Not enough people are getting vaccinated.

I dont think (vaccine hesitancy) is going to disappear. Its very entrenched, so thats why I dont think you can vaccinate your way out of COVID, Caplan said.

Currently, 56% of Georgians are fully vaccinated, but that number has remained stagnant for the past few months. It took from February 7 to April 7 for the state to increase a single percentile.

Given that only 55% of Americans received their flu vaccine this past winter, annual shots might not be a long-term solution for country-wide immunity. Vaccine developers are searching for a one-shot solution to potentially address that issue, but it would be an unprecedented medical discovery. Caplan said the challenge could be similar to that of developing a vaccine for HIV, which has eluded scientists due to the viruss quick mutations.

The ability for people to become reinfected with COVID, just like the flu, means its a completely different situation from developing the vaccines that nearly eradicated measles and polio, Orenstein said.

Many types of vaccines, called mRNA vaccines, target the virus spike protein, which is how viruses enter and infect human cells. The spike protein for measles and polio doesnt change, allowing for vaccines to provide lifelong protection.

The flu and coronaviruses have spike proteins that mutate often, requiring reformulated vaccines and multiple shots.

There are scientific studies underway searching for a pan-coronavirus vaccine, sometimes called a universal vaccine, which would provide long-term protection against COVID and its variants. But those efforts have been attempted with the flu for decades and have yet to yield a miracle shot.

To do better than Mother Nature is a challenge, Orenstein said.

Here is the original post:

New COVID-19 vaccines are in the works, but how much will they help? - The Atlanta Journal Constitution