For the "follow the money" crew, this is a real winner. Turns out there was already a viable vaccine delivery system available but it just wasn't flashy or cool enough for the .gov to care. $1.50 a dose, top end.
"When a new strain of coronavirus triggered the COVID-19 pandemic, Hotez and Bottazzi figured they could dust off their old technology and modify it for use against COVID-19. After all, the virus causing COVID-19 and the virus causing SARS are quite similar.
Hotez says they tried to interest government officials in the vaccine, but they weren't impressed.
"People were so fixated on innovation that nobody thought, 'Hey, maybe we could use a low-cost, durable, easy-breezy vaccine that can vaccinate the whole world,' " Hotez says."