At this point, the coronavirus has been with us for nearly 3 years, and the rate of new infections in some areas is even higher now than it was at this time last year. The purpose of vaccines developed so far has been to reduce the number of deaths, but they are increasingly less effective at completely blocking transmission.
Now, the White House is kicking off "Operation Warp Speed 2", an initiative aimed at developing a next-generation COVID-19 vaccine specifically designed to stop transmission and offer longer-lasting protection.
"These are vaccines that are going to be far more durable, that are going to provide far longer-lasting protection, no matter what the virus does or how it evolves," White House COVID-19 response coordinator Ashish Jha said during an interview. "If we can drive down infections by 90% ... Covid really begins to fade into the background, and becomes just one more respiratory illness that we have to deal with."
According to NPR, the administration may be changing its plans to give more young adults access to their second booster this summer as it instead focuses on the next generation vaccine rollout in the fall. A decision on that change is expected by the end of the week from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
Experts disagree regarding whether or not the second boosters should be distributed. Some are worried that the new shots won't actually be more effective, while others have expressed concerns over the possible health ramifications of taking the second booster and then the next-generation vaccine so soon after.
On the other hand, the existing vaccines only offer so much protection from variants, and even newer variants may take hold in the fall and winter. With that in mind, a next-generation vaccine aimed at covering all potential mutations may be our best bet.
"There's a sense that we're playing catch-up with the virus," Jha said. "The virus is constantly evolving. We're having to evolve with it, that's fine. But over the long run, we really need a serious breakthrough."
The initiative started with a "summit" on July 26 for top scientists, officials, and drug company executives to meet and discuss a plan for developing the next-generation vaccines. The summit included executives from both Moderna
Scientists are viewing the summit as a sign that investment in COVID-19 development might pick back up, and Operation Warp Speed 2 was praised by the scientific community for attempting to bring attention back to this issue.
"I'm very thrilled they're having this summit," said Akiko Iwasaki, summit attendee and researcher at Yale studying the use and commercialization of nasal vaccine boosters. "It's really important that the entire country be thinking about next-generation vaccines that may potentially prevent infection and transmission."
"That's probably the only way to contain the spread of the virus," Iwasaki continued.
One of the key issues standing in the way of an effective next-generation vaccine is the mutation of new coronavirus variants. Designing a vaccine that can respond to mutated versions of the virus is another top priority for the initiative.
"Variant chasing will never get us to where we need to be," director and founder of the Scripps Research Translational Institute Eric Topol said. "Variant chasing is a losing strategy. It's temporally flawed and unacceptable."
The project to develop the new vaccines is expected to cost billions of dollars, but that's nothing new. The first Operation Warp Speed to develop an initial vaccine cost $12.4 billion in 2020 alone, and the current administration just spent another $3.2 billion on a vaccine contract with Pfizer last month.
However, that money may be running out. Congress has become increasingly unwilling to fund pandemic efforts. After Congress refused to provide more money for COVID vaccines last month, the White House repurposed $10 billion from an existing fund to cover the cost.
One major problem that more money isn't likely to solve is vaccine hesitancy. According to a survey from the Kaiser Family Foundation, half of the survey participants who had not been vaccinated said that nothing could convince them to get the shot, and only 3% said infection prevention might change their minds.
