COVID-19 Vaccines, Playing the Long Game

In the first episode of "Intention to Treat," the New England Journal of Medicine editor-in-chief Eric Rubin and his colleague at the U.S. FDA Vaccine Advisory Committee, Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, consider the achievements, limitations, and expectations of COVID-19 vaccines.

This Perspective, published on January 26, 2023, adds insights to the ongoing pandemic and how people are protected from this novel disease.

Rachel Gotbaum: Let's first talk about where we are before discussing whether we can improve.

Paul Offit: Well, I think we're doing great. I mean, if you look at where we were in 2020, we didn't have monoclonal antibodies, we didn't have vaccines, we didn't have antivirals. All we had was barrier protections, sort of isolate, quarantine, test, close schools, close businesses, and restrict travel. That's how bad things were.

This complete, unedited article is posted at this link.

Additionally, late on January 26, 2023, NPR reported that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) vaccine committee voted unanimously on a proposal to simplify the nation's COVID-19 vaccination strategy.

The recommendation is that future COVID-19 vaccines should be interchangeable: regardless if you're getting your first dose or a booster, the vaccines would all have the same formulation targeting the same SARS-CoV-2 beta coronavirus strain or strains produced by any of the four FDA-authorized manufacturers.

In addition, the committee considered (but didn't vote on) proposals to have an annual COVID-19 vaccination schedule, much like the seasonal flu shot.

If this happens, most people would be advised to get just one shot every fall with a new vaccine that's probably been enhanced to match whatever virus variant is predicted to be spread each winter.

This would mean people would no longer need to track how many COVID-19 shots they've already gotten, which type, or when.