Category: COVID-19 and Public Health
Covid Vaccine Makers Won’t Share Vaccines for Next-Gen Research
In his Wednesday Links, John Goodman points to the question, Why aren’t we developing more nasal vaccines? This from Alex Tabarrok at Marginal Revolution:
Nasal vaccines are more likely to stop infection than vaccines injected into muscle because they stimulate mucosal immunity in the nose and respiratory system, the first line of attack, and they are likely to increase uptake especially among people with trypanophobia. Hence my longstanding call for an Operation Warp Speed for nasal vaccines. We haven’t got OWS 2.0 in the United States but nasal vaccines have recently been approved in China and India.
White House: Covid is Here to Stay, as are Annual Boosters
Covid boosters are here to stay according to White House officials. They will likely be similar to annual flu shots, with a new booster to defend against a new variant every year. There were discussions a year ago that suggested drug makers were looking for a common denominator that would be present in all Covid variants, but I doubt that will happen. First of all it’s not easy or it would have been done already for flu shots and Covid boosters. Second, why would drug makers make a universal vaccine when they can sell boosters for new variants every year?
Friday Links
- Last year CMS received 41,136 complaints about the marketing of Medicare Advantage plans. (WSJ, gated)
- Do breaks from surgery improve the performance of orthopedic surgeons? Yes. HT: Tyler
- Can a dead person fly? Not before the TSA pats her down.
- CDC’s latest message: You don’t have to do anything about COVID, except please go get your booster urgently.
- A summary of Fauci flip flops. (NYT, gated)