Is a universal coronavirus vaccine a pipe dream?

Posted on by

Scientists are in the (very) early stages of working out a universal vaccine against coronaviruses–one that would block not only Covid’s existing and future variants but any new coronaviruses that emerge.

Okay, let’s call that a possible vaccine. It could easily not work out, but on the other hand no law of nature says that it can’t. Scientists have been doing the next-to-impossible a lot lately. I’ve started to take it for granted. 

IMG_0082 (1)

Irrelevant photo: A camellia bud, stolen from an old post because I’m trapped in WordPress’s horrible new editing program and haven’t found a way to drop in new photos at full size. I had a way to avoid the new system, but they’ve blocked it.  

They can approach the task in two ways. One is to make a mosaic vaccine. That has nothing to do with Moses–you know, the guy with the stone tablets. It’s from the word for those tiny pieces of colored tile that make up a picture. The vaccine takes particles from several Covid variants or other coronaviruses and sticks them onto a nanoparticle–a very tiny biological structure made up of proteins. Think of it as sticking some olives on a toothpick.

Or don’t. It’s your mind. I’ll never know. But if you do want to go out on that imaginary limb with me, watch while I saw it off behind us: We’re going to take that toothpick with its olives and drop it into the martini of your immune system.

Thwack. That was the sound of us hitting the ground, olives and all.

It would make a nice lullabye, don’t you think?

Now that we’ve dusted ourselves off, we can let our immune systems figure out what those bits of virus have in common and arm itself–and us–against that.

When this was tried in mice, their immune systems created a broad range of neutralizing antibodies. And creating neutralizing antibodies is the main goal of any vaccine.

Mice–as no doubt you already know–are not humans. They’re also not martinis, so this may not transfer seamlessly from them to us. But it holds some promise.

If you’ll let me brush those twigs out of your hair, we can go on.

The second approach has the scientists looking for features that are common to all coronaviruses. That could mean analyzing their genetic sequences to see where they overlap. It could also mean looking for immune cells that react to either all coronaviruses or to a number of variants, and then mapping the parts of the virus that they target. After that, all that’s left is to create a vaccine aimed at that spot.

Nothing to it.

Those of you who don’t drink will be relieved to know that no martinis are involved in this approach.

Now I’ll throw cold water on the whole project and tell you that scientists have been trying to come up with a universal flu vaccine and a universal HIV vaccine for years. The candidates have been safe but not impressively effective. Still, Covid doesn’t mutate as quickly as either HIV or the flu.

Yes, really. In spite of everything we’ve been reading about variants. This is what’s called slow mutation. 

So no one’s offering guarantees that this will work, but it’s a bright spot on the horizon. 

The horizon, unfortunately, is a good long way away.

Policy-type stuff

An international survey of how countries handled the pandemic shows that autocracies and democracies did equally well and equally badly, as did rich countries and poor countries and countries governed by populists and countries governed by technocrats. In other words, none of those were decisive factors.

Lockdowns of one sort or another do break the chain of infection, but they’re not universally successful. If the population doesn’t trust the government, they don’t seem to work. (I’m stretching the study’s conclusion a bit there. It sounds more tentative about it.) Economic support may make lockdowns more effective. (“May”? I can’t imagine the part of the world where making sure people who can’t work can still eat and pay their rent wouldn’t help. Never mind. It’s not my study. They’re not my conclusions.)

Some countries with strong scientific capacity and healthcare systems have responded badly, and some countries with far less (Mongolia, Thailand, Senegal) have both kept their people healthy and the economy running. 

Some countries (Taiwan, Vietnam, and New Zealand get a mention) did well in controlling the first wave and kept control from there on. Others did well in the first wave but the waves that followed swept over them. 

I’ll get out of the way now and let the people involved in the study have the last word:

“While our work has tracked individual governments’ responses, it is clear that exiting the pandemic will require global cooperation. Until transmission is curtailed throughout the world with restrictions and vaccinations, the risk of new variants sending us back to square one cannot be ignored.”

In other words, we’re all in this together. Even when we don’t act as if we are.

*

So let’s check in on a country that’s managed well and hasn’t gotten a lot of publicity. 

Before it had its first Covid case, Iceland had a testing system and a contact-tracing team, ready to go to work as soon as they found their first case. They put everyone who tested positive into isolation and traced their contacts. The word one of the people involved uses, with no apology, is aggressively.

Isolation–as least in Reykjavik–is in a hotel that was converted for the purpose. In response to which the staff walked out. The man in charge (I have no idea what his title is–sorry; let’s call him Gylfi Thor Thorsteinsson, since that’s his name) coaxed them back. They work in full protective gear. Thorsteinsson at least goes into people’s rooms to keep them company.  I assume many of the others go in as well, but the article I read didn’t say. In the past year, the hotel’s taken care of more patients than all the hospitals in Iceland rolled into one.

After Iceland got its first wave under control, they closed the hotel. Then they immediately had to reopen it when two tourists who’d tested positive went a-wandering. And by immediately, I do mean immediately. They just had a goodbye party for the staff when they had to say hello again. 

Now anyone who lands at the airport is tested and put into quarantine. As a result, Iceland is a country where people can go to bars, eat out, and generally wander the world without masks, as if life was normal. Not because they’re risking their lives and other people’s but because it’s safe.

At one point, someone carrying the UK Covid variant slipped through the net and spread it to a second person, who went to work in a hospital and in case that wasn’t bad enough went to a concert with 800 other people, who all crammed into the bar during the intermission. 

Whee. Viral playtime.

Within hours, the tracing system had contacted every one of them. Within days, they’d tested 1,000 people, finding two cases, and they were taken to the isolation hotel. 

And that was it. The virus was contained. 

Why has Iceland been so successful? Thorsteinsson said it’s because “it has been the scientists making up the rules, not the politicians. That matters. They know what they are talking about, the politicians do not.”

The prime minister, Katrin Jakobsdottir, seconded that. 

“I think it’s important for a politician to realize what is politics and what needs to be solved by scientific means. It’s my firm belief that we need to listen more to the experts.”

 

A short technical rant

WordPress in its wisdom has blocked the back road that once allowed me to use its manageable Classic Editor, so I’m now trapped in the new one. If anyone knows how to size photos (or knows a back road), pleasepleaseplease let me know. Thanks.

33 thoughts on “Is a universal coronavirus vaccine a pipe dream?”

  4. Interesting about Iceland. They did it right, most countries did not, that is why there is a raging pandemic and the infection and death rates are still going up on a world wide basis. A universal viral vaccine has been a pipe dream for decades. Remember that in history most epidemics and pandemics were not stopped by vaccines. Just smallpox after 200 years of vaccinations. Cholera was stopped in every outbreak by improving clean water and sanitation. The same for malaria, TB, Polio, and many other infectious diseases. Today countries that still have outbreaks of these diseases all have poor sanitation, such as India where sewage treatment is still non existent is a majority of the country. In rural areas people walk in the roads and not on the side of the roads because it is full of human and animal feces. As we know now air that is not circulating indoors is dangerous for spreading covid and any airborne infectious disease. Clean air water and sanitation are the real way to stop epidemics and pandemics. Far UVC lighting is a way to clean the air and surfaces of infectious substances. Full UVC is already in use to clean water and is much less expensive that other methods. Clean water, air, and proper sanitation for all of the world should be the aim of first world countries to stop the epidemics that also spread to their shores!

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply ↓

    • Whether this beast is eliminated or only controlled, I think it’s going to take a multi-pronged approach. I’m interested in all the approaches that are in development. The work that’s going on amazes me.

      Like

      Reply ↓

  5. I like this – “Why has Iceland been so successful? Thorsteinsson said it’s because “it has been the scientists making up the rules, not the politicians. That matters. They know what they are talking about, the politicians do not.””
    Amen to that. It’s annoying to hear long negative ranting speeches from ‘a friend of a friend whose chiropractor’s office manager’s nurse’s sister said’, some malarkey. Oofta, feeda fawn… (more Minnesotan mildly bad language in case you are missing us). If the shots are supposed to track me and sterilize me and change my DNA, well jokes on them, all that’s already been done a long time ago. And I proudly believe my life is being super helpful for any ‘trackers’ who, need to catch up on sleep. 😊

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply ↓

    • What? You’re life couldn’t pass itself off as an action movie? You do shock me.

      Either I left before people started saying feeda fawn or I didn’t hang out with anyone polite enough to say that. Either one is entirely possible. What’s it mean–or what’s it a substitute for? Or is it like uffda/oofda–one of those words that just is?

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply ↓

      • Thank you so much for being shocked! While I like to think I live an adventurous life, I’m not exciting enough to be in the ‘high society pages’ (with the exception of your blog comment section of course).
        I’m surprised you haven’t heard these MN words. If you had been fortunate enough to spend more time in the far northern regions like the Northwest Angle or Skime, then maybe…? Living that far north mighta given us dual citizenship with our Canadian neighbors, but someone may, (or may not have) in a misunderstanding, feeda fawned their neighbor’s poutine… so here we are.
        (I could be mistaken but) These words seem to follow no particular spelling or meaning, they’re open to many pronunciations and interpretations. Just be careful not to say the wrong one at the wrong time. That being said, perhaps I should refrain from using them in case I create a misunderstanding.
        Thank-you again for your insight on the Virus topic and future vaccine possibilities.

        Liked by 1 person

        Reply ↓

        • One of the things I’ve learned from living in a culture that isn’t my own is to be careful of adopting words and phrases that I don’t fully understand, because I’ll end up saying all sorts of strange things I don’t quite mean. So I’ll admire feeda fawned from a distance, I think. Thanks for introducing me to it.

          Like

          Reply ↓

  6. Iceland’s sensible explanation of their success is devastatingly simple. Too bad people making decisions Over Here when all this started were also Devastatingly Simple. There is hope. A universal vaccine would be amazing…though it seems a ways off,

    I don’t have a blog, but I read a lot of them and the new format that has been set up on the blogs I read makes it hard to navigate as a reader, so I can only imagine the frustration of those of you who have to USE the thing.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply ↓

  7. I equally loathed the new version at first, but necessity has brought me around to the mother of invention that fostered a manageble learning curve.
    Have you tried choosing “block” when you start the post – there is a “classic” block that will let you input the pictures as we did before, I think.
    Good luck with this. I despise change.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply ↓

  8. I’m not sure what the deal is with WP mgmt hating the Classic Editor. I went to Account Settings on the Profile Page. Changed Dashboard Appearance to “Show Advanced Dashboard Pages”. I could then use the workaround from the All Posts page. It worked this week, so hopefully all is well again. At least until they try to put another nail in its coffin

    Like

    Reply ↓

  9. Hi–as always, I enjoy your posts and they make sense out of a huge washtub of conflicting info. As for “feeda fawn” I’ve never heard that here in Minnesota (or Wisconsin or the Dakotas or Canada) BUT a very common expletive in Norwegian (which I and plenty of older Minnesotans do speak) is “Fik Fanten!” which means “Call up the Devil”. So it may just be a mispronunciation of what people may have heard sometime. Really intended to be about dismay at how upsetting or destructive something is, while “Uff Da” can mean almost anything, kind of like “Well, then” or “Oh , Gosh!”. Hope that helps a little….

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply ↓

  10. “Within hours, the tracing system had contacted every one of them. Within days, they’d tested 1,000 people, finding two cases, and they were taken to the isolation hotel.”

    Wow, now that makes sense, and it makes me want to cry knowing that we could have done that, but did not.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply ↓

Leave a reply to Ellen Hawley Cancel reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.