31 Comments
Nov 27, 2021Liked by Noah Smith

“Supervaccine” seems to be a scary name for the anti-vaxxers. Maybe something like "Omecron-3 Triple Strength, Supports Brain & Heart Health" is better.

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Topol's mentioned intranasal vaccines before as another good idea. Apparently they reduce transmission more than regular intramuscular vaccines. Did you talk at all about intranasals with Topol? I didn't see it in the interview.

I'd be interested whether he and other experts think "funding for intranasal vaccines" should be on the list with "genomic surveillance", "aggressive booster trials and rollout" and "pansarbecovirus vaccine funding and coordination".

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Moderna issued a release this afternoon (Friday 3 pm) saying that the mutations seen in Omicron were two things seen in Beta and some other stuff that had appeared with Delta. They then say they have stuff in early testing that responds to both sets of changes. Have you got a path to find out how much of these "forward-looking" statements are likely to prove true? What is the path to release of updated vaccines that were lucky in anticipating the omicron mutations or that are rapidly revised in the light of the current few weeks of analysis?

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Good to know that all that teeth-pulling to get people to take the vaccine was a waste of time. Honestly why even bother at this point? Eventually we all die.

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Universal vaccine is considered pie in the sky by leaders in vaccine development. What persuades you otherwise?

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This was super helpful and interesting, thanks!

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A question - does the term transmissability refer to transmission between (or to) unvaccinated people? Would transmissability between (or to) unvaccinated people be transmissability x vaccine eludability? Thank you for your help.

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Heck. 8 billion people need to be quickly vaccinated, to overcome this endless evolution of new covid variants.....an political, economic, and logistics problem as much as a medical emergency.

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What’s this all about? A new halo game mode?

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