this post was submitted on 26 Apr 2026
458 points (99.8% liked)

World News

55761 readers
1617 users here now

A community for discussing events around the World

Rules:

Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.


Lemmy World Partners

News !news@lemmy.world

Politics !politics@lemmy.world

World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world


Recommendations

For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] avidamoeba@lemmy.ca 14 points 1 day ago (3 children)

Anyone know much about the efficacy of the flu part of it? Says it's more effective than existing ones but is this the revolutionary flu shot that takes us out of the yearly flu vaccine rat race or not that far yet?

[–] SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 day ago

It works as well as existing flu shots, which rely of an educated guess on which flu strain will hit NA in the fall. This dual vaccine is just convenient.

[–] mitram@sopuli.xyz 12 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Is the "revolutionary flu shot" even feasible at the moment?

From the little I understand about the topic, our hopes of getting rid of the flu are pretty much none until vaccines for the constantly adapting flu virus are very cheap and very quick to develop/deploy. Until then, the virus will simply adapt to the old vaccines quicker than we can counter it.

[–] Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 6 points 1 day ago

the flu basically has one of the highest mutation rate, only HIV is higher. they do it in 3 parts, antigenic shift, genetic drift, and recombination, the last one makes it more dangerous, they can recombine with more than 1 different strain to make a new one, that was the case with h1n1.

[–] avidamoeba@lemmy.ca 14 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

I thought there was an effort to target a not-so-easy to change part of the virus. Maybe I've been dreaming. Either way the yearly shot, mRNA or otherwise is much more profitable so a one-and-done vaccine won't appear out of Moderna of Pfizer, that's for sure.

The whole not easy to change part can be a little misleading too. They originally thought that was the case with covid vaccines and it turned out that was not the case. Turns out when there's pressure, sometimes things actually can happen.

[–] Enkrod@feddit.org 2 points 1 day ago

As if the companies would think long term instead of yearly profit... whoever comes up with a one and done flu vaccine will see an enormous (if short) spike in profits and shareholders will want that spike to sell at the highest price possible and maybe get some dividends along the way.

[–] rwrwefwef@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Anyone know much about the efficacy of the flu part of it?

A full cohort study would have to be made to attest to that. But guessing from the efficacies of the corona vax, probably not a drastic difference.

is this the revolutionary flu shot that takes us out of the yearly flu vaccine rat race or not that far yet?

Not a chance. As the flu virus mutates every so often, new vaccines will have to be made to adapt to the current epidemiology. It is a circular race.

[–] Redjard@reddthat.com 2 points 1 day ago

Flu and corona are both "common cold type" viruses defeating resistance in some way. For coronaviruses that method is stopping the body from building effective resistance by all means possible, so that is why vaccines tend to not work too well.
For the flu it's the many variations and its tendency to change further and need new antibodies.
So I don't think a specific flu strain is hard to make a very effective vaccine for, but ofc this doesn't yet solve the flu problem.
The immense speed at which mRNA vaccines can be developed might improve that in the future, where this here could be one of many steps to get regulatory approval for blanket mrna and actually be permitted to change them at that pace.

In principle mRNA should let you crank you vaccines for new diseases/flu-strains in under a week. If this can fully stop the flu?... I doubt it. Whatever does solve it will probably make use of this tech though.