Effort to Update Vaccines Not Keeping Up With Rapidly Changing Variants

us for What to Know. Thanks for joining us, Caitlin, thanks for having me. Well, let's get a little check in with what's going on with the pandemic right now. We're obviously going through another surge of cases, although this one's a little more difficult to pin down. A lot of people are testing at home and are reporting officially but just anecdotally. I feel like this was the wave that caught up with me and all the other people that I know that had kind of outlasted the rest

of the pandemic. So we know that a lot more people have been infected with it more recently. Thankfully, still some of the hospital numbers and debt counts haven't ticked up as much, so definitely is still a different phase

of the pandemic. But you know, we talk about vaccines again, and right now what we're seeing is specifically with these new variants that are coming out, they're just out running the vaccines, the tweaks to vaccines that we're trying to make, and there's a lot of questions on what will be approved next with these. So, Caitlyn, what are we seeing? So let's start by kind of the biggest pictures. Something

you just pointed out. There's still a very serious decoupling between cases in hospitalizations and deaths, which is a really good thing. You know, it's probably because of the combination of how many people have already had COVID the vaccines obviously, and how many people have been boosted, including with a second booster, and then just the lower severity of the omicron variant itself. So that's the good news. The bad

news is that the omicron variant. You know, it's funny because we've called all these variants different names up until now, where we have alpha data delta, then we have omicon and omicron. Is it is evolving to where there's different versions of omicron, and what we're seeing now there's the latest ones and they originated in South Africa. They're circulating around the world. Experts are starting to say that they'll probably become dominant in the United States in a few months.

They are different than the original version, and one of the main differences is that they are significantly better at escaping in the protection. So what does this mean If we're targeting vaccines to the original version of omicron, which seems likely at this point, the virus might have significantly

evolved by then. And I think, you know, when you talk to experts, there's no real reason I think that would mean anything for severe disease, as even the original vaccines are still working really well against severe disease with a macron. But I think when it goes to show you is if we really need to retold these vaccines quickly,

I mean, that's a challenge. Yeah, And that was one of the things that we've always been told right about the m R and A vaccines, that they can be tweaked very quickly, right, But then when it comes to getting the real world data, that's the thing that still takes a little bit of time. And that's the troublesome thing right now, as these things are mutating very quickly, we're still caught in this lag with these vaccines, and

you know, we're seeing breakthrough infections things like that. You know a lot of people have been vaccinated and boosting, they're still getting sick. And that causes another effect. It causes more fatigue in the pandemic. It causes a little more distrust in the vaccine, even saying like why am I even getting it because I'm still getting sick. And so there's a lot a lot more things that start developing as you know, the lag and some of these

vaccines does take place. And that's the hard part here, right is we they're mixed data on whether an almicrone specific vaccine or even an omicron combo vaccine will offer better protection in the original one did against a macron. But that's why you know, we have experts saying that it's time for next generation vaccine um. A popular idea is a nasal vaccine. There's taco pan coronavirus vaccines. None

of these things exist yet on the market. I think the bottom line is what we most want vaccines to do, which is to keep people alive and out of the hospital these vaccines is still doing very well, but in terms of reducing infections um and in the ideal world, they'd be better at that. And that's part of the goal was finding an omicron specific vaccine, is getting a vaccine that will protect better gives infections. The more changes, the less likely that is to happen. And so where

are we right now? I know there's some clinical trials on vaccines and dealing with the omicron variant. Are they dealing with the variant proper or the sub variants right now? Where are we in that process? So I believe, But what's being tested? I think, first of all, there's all kinds of trials going on. I think the front runner

what we can most expect. What if I had guess what was most likely to get approve for the fall, it would be what's called a bi valent vaccine, which is which would target both the original which you know targets that suite of variants including delta with omicrons, so you know fight would target both variants at the same time. Again, but that would be most likely targeted towards the original armicron.

So we'll get some more answers to summer, the FDA is going to consider it to make sure we're ready going into the fall. Yeah, And then to the point of the whole thing, right, as things keep changing, what if we get a worse variant? Hopefully obviously nobody wants that to happen, But then how quickly can we turn

around a vaccine targets that thing? And as you mentioned at the end of your article, then there's gonna be big regulatory decisions that have to be made to speed those things up, right right, you know, And I think it is important in the context of this and the

grand scheme of things. The implications of a mismatch of an omicron vaccine with a current omicron those are relatively minor, as I knowed in the article, But say there is a drastically different vaccine, then we need something very different quickly.

I mean, as you said, the problem here is collecting data, So that creates kind of a tension between well, how much data do we want to collect to approve this next version or authorize this next version versus how you know, should we just go ahead and use for example, like lab based studies that look at neutralizing in the bodies and say yes, this is good enough for making the switch now, and so you know, hopefully will never come to that point that that is something to be aware of.

And I think something that this current situation is, you know, kind of highlighting the reality of Yeah, well, I mean, obviously we're still very much in the thick of the pandemic as this latest wave has shown, although you know, things are different, so we'll keep an eye out and just kind of we're still going through it basically and see how all of this change are. Yeah, Kaitlyn Owens, healthcare reporter at Axios, Thank you very much for joining us.

Thank you for having me. I'm Oscar Ramirez and this has been reopening America. Don't forget effort today's big news stories. You can check me out in the Daily Dive podcast every mondy Friday. So follow us an I Heeart Radio or wherever you get your podcasts.