The current Covid-19 vaccines have largely done their job in preventing mass deaths, and scientists should focus on developing a vaccine that stops the transmission of the virus, according to leading scientist Sir John Bell.
The success of the Covid vaccine has led to a decline in deaths and severe disease from the virus, even though the latest variant, Omicron, has spread rapidly.
Bell is a professor of medicine at Oxford University and a former member of the UK vaccine task force who worked on the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine.
The deaths from the disease had largely been eliminated by the late spring of 2021, and they rumbled along at a very low level and close to baseline.
The number of UK deaths that should be expected based on average mortality data before the Pandemic is represented by the baseline.
A number of people with long-term health issues are left without a job because of the spread of coronaviruses. Scientists are pinning their hopes on sprays in the nose and throat, rather than shots in the arm, which aim to produce strong immune protection in the nose and throat, to block Covid infections at the gates. There are more than a dozen trials going on.
Bell said that it was an interesting question if any of the current vaccines had a long-term future.
You have a couple of choices. You can make a new vaccine every time you see a variant, but it may not be as good as the original vaccine, so you end up chasing your tail. You could probably use the existing vaccines to help the elderly people. We have to wait and see if we see more deaths in that population.
The booster had no impact on deaths, despite all the rah-rah, according to the Canadian immunologist.
It does not do much for Omicron transmissions, but it protects against mortality and the death rate in doubly vaccined people looks very low. The vast majority of deaths are unvaccinated.
The UK's current spring booster campaign is for people over the age of 75, care home residents and those who are immunocompromised.
Bell is in favor of another round of booster shots in the autumn for people over the age of 65 and vulnerable people with poorer immune systems, but he doesn't think it's a good idea to give repeat vaccinations to healthy younger people, children and teenagers unless a more serious Covid
He said he was not enthusiastic about immunising young children. If we had a vaccine that blocks transmission, it would make sense to do kids. We need to get used to it because most of the world will get Covid.
He estimated a very high chance that a new variant will be relatively mild, like Omicron, while the chances of a more lethal variant emerging were very low.
We need to be on the lookout for a highly pathogenic variant that might start killing people at scale and is evading the vaccine response, but we see no sign of that today.
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