{"id":50548,"date":"2022-07-18T14:23:08","date_gmt":"2022-07-18T21:23:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=50548"},"modified":"2022-07-18T16:23:41","modified_gmt":"2022-07-18T23:23:41","slug":"ba-5-spurs-calls-to-fund-next-gen-covid-vaccines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=50548","title":{"rendered":"BA.5 spurs calls to fund next-gen COVID vaccines"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The rise of the BA.5 variant is spurring new calls for funding for an Operation Warp Speed 2.0 to accelerate development of next-generation COVID-19 vaccines that can better target new variants.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The BA.5 subvariant of omicron that now makes up\u00a0the majority of\u00a0U.S. COVID-19 cases is sparking concern because it has a greater ability to evade the protection of current vaccines\u00a0than past strains of the virus did.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Pfizer and Moderna are working on updated vaccines that target BA.5 that could be ready this fall, but experts say that by the time they are ready, a new variant very well could have taken hold.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>The promising alternatives:\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\u201cPan-coronavirus\u201d vaccines that are \u201cvariant-proof,\u201d targeting multiple variants<\/li>\n<li>Nasal vaccines that could drastically cut down on transmission of the virus<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>The obstacle<\/strong>: There is ongoing research on these next-gen vaccines, but unlike in 2020, when the federal government\u2019s Operation Warp Speed helped speed the development of the original vaccine, there is less funding and assistance this time.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>COVID-19 funding that could help develop and manufacture new vaccines more quickly has been stalled in Congress for months.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere\u2019s no Operation Warp Speed,\u201d\u00a0said Eric Topol, professor of molecular medicine at Scripps Research.\u00a0\u201cSo\u00a0it\u2019s moving very slowly. But at least it\u2019s moving.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The rise of the BA.5 variant&#46;&#46;&#46;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-50548","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50548","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=50548"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50548\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50549,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50548\/revisions\/50549"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=50548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=50548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=50548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}