lotstodo
aka "The Jackal"
Two of the vaccines entering phase 3 are 2 shot vaccines. It appears that it takes more antibodies than are naturally produced to give longer term protection. However, it has not been established that any vaccine can give permanent or even annual immunity. That will be part of the study.
Failing that, something that is lagging behind is a genetically engineered vaccine. This technology is being applied to the flu shot right now and shows great promise in giving multi year or perhaps even permanent immunity. The idea is to fool the body into reacting to a more basic form of the virus than exists in nature, meaning that several generations of mutations of the natural virus would still trigger an immune response in the body. Think of a Geko losing its tail every year but the new vaccine responds to the body. This may even be a path to finally curing the common cold and other fast mutating viral and bacterial infections. The bad part is that this would probably be a few years off.
Failing that, something that is lagging behind is a genetically engineered vaccine. This technology is being applied to the flu shot right now and shows great promise in giving multi year or perhaps even permanent immunity. The idea is to fool the body into reacting to a more basic form of the virus than exists in nature, meaning that several generations of mutations of the natural virus would still trigger an immune response in the body. Think of a Geko losing its tail every year but the new vaccine responds to the body. This may even be a path to finally curing the common cold and other fast mutating viral and bacterial infections. The bad part is that this would probably be a few years off.