"In the film "Contagion," for which Larry Brilliant and W. Ian Lipkin were scientific advisers, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) scientist Ally Hextall, played by actor Jennifer Ehle, injects herself with an experimental vaccine against the pandemic virus MEV-1. In a later scene, CDC Director Ellis Cheever, played by Laurence Fishburne, gives a child the intranasal vaccine that ultimately ends the pandemic.
We recommended the filmmakers use an intranasal vaccine because it would be easy to manufacture worldwide, distribute and deliver. In addition to reducing barriers to access, it would also be more effective at preventing infection by providing what is called mucosal immunity, an immune blockade in the nose, where the virus first enters the body."
"The holy grail of herd immunity — the percentage of the population that would need to be immune to the virus through infection or vaccination — is a receding target. The already challenging estimate was thought early in the pandemic to be near 70 percent coverage. After the first variants, the estimate increased to near 80 percent. And with the more transmissible omicron variant, it is now estimated that, if it could be reached at all, it would require more than 9 out of every 10 to be vaccinated."
