Do we have enough COVID-19 boosters to stop the pandemic?

When you see the letter Omicron, remember that the pandemic is far from ending.

Sadly, the tremendous growth of Omicron in the United States is a reminder that the pandemic is far from done.

Additionally, it prompts some inquiries. When will the epidemic stop? When the number of COVID-19 cases stabilizes and no longer sets records, will we have reached the "endemic" phase of transmission and no longer require additional surge capacity?

"I think many of us working in infectious disease anticipated that after the initial several surges, it wouldn't just go away totally," Dr. Shruti Gohil, associate medical director of epidemiology and infection prevention at the University of California, Irvine, told Live Science.

Experts told Live Science that the pandemic phase of transmission would cease, but more COVID-19 boosters targeting other forms of the virus are likely necessary to prevent major outbreaks. Gohil speculated that a yearly or seasonal vaccine could be required to keep case numbers low and turn COVID-19 into something more akin to a common cold than an existential threat.

The speed at which more of the world and more of the U.S. population can be vaccinated will be a significant influence on how long it takes for a pandemic to become endemic.

There will be another fire.

Dr. Sharon Nachman, head of the pediatric infectious diseases division at New York's Stony Brook Children's Hospital, sees annual boosters in her hazy future. A number of studies show that the efficacy of an initial vaccine declines rapidly after the first six months; immunity to disease is lost rather quickly, whereas the substantial drop in hospitalizations is more long-lasting. When severe cases spike unexpectedly, they put a strain on hospital resources that could be alleviated with annual vaccinations against COVID-19. But if COVID-19 became widespread like the flu, added Nachman, "we'll all get a cold and that's really it."

And as Omicron has demonstrated, we will likely need to update vaccine formulations as SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19) can mutate into more virulent and immune-evading versions.

Gohil speculated that future mRNA vaccines against COVID-19 might be able to target numerous variations of concern. She made the analogy of how vaccine manufacturers create a new flu shot every year to counteract the spread of the different strains of influenza that were circulating in the Northern Hemisphere at the time.

However, variant-specific boosters may be necessary for the near future. Reuters reports that pharmaceutical giants Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna are among the companies developing omicron-specific booster vaccines. Nevertheless, Nachman argued that utilizing variant-specific boosters is likely a stopgap approach. The virus uses the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein to hook onto and infect cells; she recommended that firms create and sell vaccines that induce an immune response to many different variants of this protein over time.

According to what Nachman said to Live Science, "I think our boosters will incorporate spike-protein sequencing from around the world so that when those viruses do alter or get close to us, we will have cross-variant protection." If there were a single vaccine that could produce cross-protective immunity, only one vaccine each year would be required, rather than four vaccines targeting different variants.

Everyone needs to get vaccinated.

The virus circulates at low but consistent levels if it has reached the endemic stage. In such a situation, illnesses follow regular patterns; there are no unprecedentedly high numbers of reported cases, and hospitals are not overwhelmed by waves of hazardous diseases.

Dr. Erica N. Johnson, chair of the Infectious Disease Board for the American Board of Internal Medicine and assistant professor of medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, argues that endemicity will remain elusive until higher rates of worldwide immunization rates. Some parts of the world do not have easy access to vaccines. I don't see how this can be reduced to "just another endemic virus" unless we address that issue.

Because the virus spreads and replicates more readily among unvaccinated people or those who are immunocompromised, universal access to immunizations is crucial.

Therefore, increasing vaccination rates is crucial for achieving endemicity. While it's true that having had an infection in the past makes you more resistant to future infections and that immunity can reduce your risk of hospitalization by as much as half, as reported by Live Science, this protection wears off quickly. It is less effective at preventing future hospitalizations. According to a CDC study, unvaccinated people who had previously been infected but had recovered were 5.49 times more likely to develop COVID-19 disease.

Nachman has stated that those who choose not to vaccinate will always have to worry about contracting COVID-19. That, Nachman said, is what is happening now with the recurrence of coronavirus illness among previously infected persons who were not vaccinated. Those who did not receive the COVID-19 vaccine after an initial sickness was found to be in better health.

In the not-too-distant future, SARS-CoV-2 will spread alongside other viruses like respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and influenza.

In addition, severe disease can be avoided by using antivirals within the first several days of a COVID-19 infection. Preliminary research on the preprint platform bioRxiv indicated that existing antivirals were effective against Omicron.

Although COVID-19 will continue to pose a concern, it will gradually grow less severe. There may be annual boosts in the future to keep it that way.

Reference : https://www.livescience.com/will-we-need-more-covid-19-boosters-to-end-pandemic

Image source : https://pixabay.com/id/illustrations/virus-coronavirus-sars-cov-2-flash-4915859/

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