The future of Covid-19 vaccines? Why nasal sprays, not needles, could be better in the long run

Half a Greek alphabet and two years into the pandemic, the world is coming to terms with the notion that Covid-19 is here to stay. As new variants emerge, millions are still falling ill, increasing the risk of even harder-hitting strains. While coronavirus vaccines are among the greatest medical achievements of all time, reaching the market in less than a year and saving millions of lives, anyone who has received three doses and still got infected will understand that the virus is a resilient opponent.

Marty Moore says he can beat it.

“Covid isn’t just a sprint, it’s a marathon,” says Moore, the relentlessly upbeat founder of Meissa Vaccines. Today’s vaccines have largely won the sprint of preventing serious disease, “and thank goodness for that”, he says. “But now we need something else to gain control of the virus.”

There are only two ways to stop the spread of the disease, according to Christian Drosten, Germany’s most prominent virologist. One would be for enough people to build up protection via repeated illness that increases immunity at the front end of the respiratory tract.

“The alternative would be to have a live vaccine that gets sprayed in the nose or throat,” he said on a podcast in March. Or, as Moore says, to build protection where the battle begins, like putting guards in front of a building rather than inside it.