Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
The White House wants to accelerate the development of next-generation COVID-19 vaccines, Stat News reported Monday. Ideally, future vaccines would offer longer-lasting protection against infection with and transmission of the virus, not just serious illness and death.
Federal officials, researchers, and representatives from pharmaceutical companies Pfizer and Moderna will meet Tuesday at a White House “summit” to discuss next steps. It’s unclear if President Biden — who currently has COVID-19 — will participate.
The currently available COVID-19 vaccines still work well to keep most people from getting seriously ill or dying from COVID-19. But the churn of new variants of the virus — most recently with the various forms of the omicron…
