• Question: Do you think the COVID vaccine will be like the flu vaccine?

    Asked by kent449yet on 10 Feb 2022.
    • Photo: Valerie Vancollie

      Valerie Vancollie answered on 10 Feb 2022:

      It is very likely that we will need yearly shots of a Covid vaccine to match the latest variant, much as we get yearly flu vaccines.

      However, there is hope that we could create a universal coronavirus vaccine, much as a lot of work has been done to create a universal flu vaccine. We’re not there yet, but with the flu vaccine there has been some promising research, so hopefully we will get there.

      For Covid, scientists are looking at people who were heavily exposed to the virus but never caught it in the hopes of learning why. It is thought that exposure to previous coronaviruses (some make up the common cold) might have made them immune. If this is true, then perhaps we can copy this for a new vaccine.

    • Photo: Melanie Krause

      Melanie Krause answered on 13 Feb 2022:

      If you mean that we will have to get it every year, yes that could potentially be true if there are more and more variants of the virus.
      I hope that we will be able to create a vaccine that will help against all variants so we don’t need to get jabbed all the time. For flu this has actually been in clinical trials now.. a few researchers in New York looked at all things the different flu viruses have in common and found a similar structure and then designed a vaccine that works well in animals. There is no data on humans yet but I really hope it works 🙂

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