COVID-19: What Have We Learned, and What Lies Ahead?

Just over two years ago, the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 to be a pandemic. New York City quickly became the epicenter, and the Mount Sinai community rose to the challenge.

Now, at this moment of cautious hope, a cross-section of the Mount Sinai community—front-line providers, researchers, and leadership—took a moment to consider two questions about the pandemic: What have we learned, and what lies ahead?

Here are thoughts from some of Mount Sinai’s leadership.

David Muller, MD

What have we learned?
Never to take each other for granted;
to say “thank you” and “I love you” as often as possible;
not to underestimate our capacity for rising to a challenge;
that those of us at the margins of society because of the color of our skin or our socioeconomic status always disproportionately bear the brunt of a crisis, and that this is a crime against humanity.

David Muller, MD, Dean for Medical Education and the Marietta and Charles C. Morchand Chair for Medical Education

 

 

 

 

Dennis S. Charney, MD

An excerpt from Relentless: How a Leading New York City Health System Mobilized to Battle the Greatest Health Crisis of Our Era, by Deborah Schupack:

As it ripped through New York City and, soon enough, across the United States—which throughout 2020 suffered the most deaths in the world—COVID-19 laid bare the challenges, strengths, and weaknesses of the American health care system. From its vantage point in the center of the storm, and with a history of leading at medicine’s progressive edge, Mount Sinai experienced the challenges earlier than most and responded in full force, building on foundations of strength to both respond immediately and begin to shape post-pandemic health care.

Mount Sinai rapidly established several new programs to address needs that the pandemic had uncovered or, more often, elevated–needs that were known, were already being addressed to some degree. But the greatest exogenous shock in more than a century dramatically accelerated several trends already in motion.

“We acted very quickly to understand the disease better, to understand the consequences of the pandemic,” said Dennis S. Charney, MD, Anne and Joel Ehrenkranz Dean, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and President for Academic Affairs, Mount Sinai Health System.  “We put these findings into place almost immediately. We invested in understanding the effect of the disease on our front-line workers’ mental health, in understanding why people of color were having worse outcomes, in developing a data center to inform diagnosis and treatment, and in systematically monitoring and analyzing the long-term impact of COVID-19. This was not only the right thing to do, we had an obligation to act—not only for us, but for the nation and for the world. We were the epicenter of the epicenter.”

As it was caring for patients and conducting science, Mount Sinai was also aiming to shift the health care system, bending it toward racial equity and social justice, toward honoring health care workers as not just heroes but humans in need of help, and toward a true partnership with the patient, particularly in defining this novel disease, its symptoms and its acute and chronic impact. Mount Sinai was trying to ever shorten the bridge between medicine and science, leveraging big data and amplifying collaborations across all axes, including much valued public-private partnerships. And it was moving flexibly and nimbly at a pace never before traveled in health care, and urging a new focus on cultivating resilience—of systems, spaces, stuff, and staff—to sustain itself and the people it serves in a decidedly uncertain future.

Kelly Cassano, DO

For me, the pandemic has been about the people: the patients, staff, and our colleagues.

All of our relationships, individually and collectively, have been impacted in large and small ways. We have been humbled as individuals, as teams, and as an organization.

For what in moments of time seemed impossible, we endured and overcame many hurdles, together, to deliver the possible.

We are truly Better Together.

Kelly Cassano, DO, Chief Executive Officer Mount Sinai Doctors Faculty Practice
Senior Vice President for Ambulatory Operations, Mount Sinai Health System
Dean for Clinical Affairs, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

Gary C. Butts, MD

These last two years have challenged us as a system, as a community, and as individuals in many ways, but in particular regarding equity as a core value. As spotlights have become more focused on the myriad racial injustices and inequities we face, locally and nationally, it has made us question our successes and the impact of our work on our broader Mount Sinai community and the many communities we serve.

It has become clearer that we must recommit and accelerate Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) efforts—to establish a DEI learning community; to expand efforts for inclusive recruitment, mentoring, and development; and to enhance our capabilities to address care access and delivery and the disparities in health outcomes, among other important priorities.

We are reminded that racism is an important underpinning and contributor to these ills and that addressing these successfully requires deep, broad, and enduring solutions and authentic commitment and accountability from all of us. Finally we have learned and witnessed the value of family, friends, and community, and the importance of wellness and balance to support our professional work and to sustain ourselves, particularly during times that stretch our reserves.

Gary C. Butts, MD, Executive Vice President for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, Mount Sinai Health System
Dean for Diversity Programs, Policy and Community Affairs, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

David Reich, MD

What have we learned? We learned that the challenges we faced any particular week of the spring 2020 COVID-19 crisis were often completely different a few days later. Creating ICU and hospital capacity, building laboratory testing capability, developing new clinical protocols, including the world’s first anticoagulation dosing regimen, redeploying staff, and finding enough PPE were the overwhelming clinical and logistical needs at that time.

Perhaps more important, we learned that we could eliminate barriers and silos to leverage the collegial interactions of clinical physicians and nurses with virologists, data scientists, and the vast resources of the world-leading Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. We brought science into the real-time service of conquering a new disease and saving patient lives. This is the lesson that persists and has enriched our future.

What lies ahead? We see that change is a constant and that we must maintain and strengthen the linkages between our scientists and clinicians to succeed in rapidly changing circumstances. With the likelihood of new variants, vigilance and rapid adaptation by public health officials and health systems require seamless sharing of information.

Vigilance takes the form of closely monitoring laboratory COVID-19 testing, hospitalizations for severe illness, and the impact of less severe illness on maintaining workforces and vital services. Integrating artificial intelligence/machine learning and precision medicine are legacies that will improve our future.

David Reich, MD, President, The Mount Sinai Hospital and Mount Sinai Queens

Marta Filizola, PhD

“What have we learned?” Key elements that will help us better respond to future pandemics, specifically the need for: effective communication strategies, enhanced IT infrastructure/resources/expertise, workplace flexibility for all stakeholders at all career levels, and advocacy to facilitate the mobility of trainees.

Marta Filizola, PhD, Dean, Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences Sharon and Frederick A. Klingenstein-Nathan G. Kase, MD Professor Pharmacological Sciences, Neuroscience, and Artificial Intelligence and Human Health

 

 

 

Michael Leitman, MD, FACS

In Graduate Medical Education, we have learned much from the COVID-19 pandemic:

  1. Residents and fellows, who are on the front lines of patient care, play a crucial role understanding and treating patients with this disease.
  2. Physicians learned even more about using current data in strategies to protect themselves from infectious diseases (personal protective equipment, vaccination, strategic isolation, treatment).
  3. We live in a world without borders. A disease that impacts a corner of the world will eventually affect all of us. We must provide resources to employ prevention and treatment strategies to all people, regardless of where they live and their ability to pay.
  4. Public health is a precious right.  Health care must be available to everyone and not based upon the ability to pay for it.

Michael Leitman, MD, FACS, Dean for Graduate Medical Education

Pam Abner, MPA, CPXP

We learned that we have to think differently and not rely on responses that are tailored for one group—treating people the same.

To be equitable and care for marginalized groups, we have to reach into our communities to include their input and perspectives in order to connect with them and consider their needs and concerns.

COVID-19 was eye-opening; it exposed how we truly needed to use new thinking and approaches to be equitable.

Pam Abner, MPA, CPXP, Vice President and Chief Diversity Operations Officer for Mount Sinai Hospital Groups

 

 

 

Jeremy Boal, MD

The COVID-19 pandemic has transformed our Health System in so many positive ways.

We are more resilient and more adaptable than at any time in our history. We are more trusting of each other.

We are much quicker to dive in and help each other. We are more willing to forgive each other’s mistakes and flaws. We have dropped so much of our baggage so that we can best serve those who need us most.

Jeremy Boal, MD, President, Mount Sinai Beth Israel Executive Vice President and Chief Clinical Officer, Mount Sinai Health System  

 

 

 

Prestigious Award Named in Honor of Valentin Fuster, MD, PhD, by American College of Cardiology

The American College of Cardiology (ACC) has established a new award in honor of Valentin Fuster, MD, PhD, Director of Mount Sinai Heart and Physician-in-Chief of The Mount Sinai Hospital.

The first “Valentin Fuster Award for Innovation in Science” was announced at ACC’s 71st Annual Scientific Session in Washington on Monday, April 4. It was presented to Dr. Fuster to honor his significant contributions to cardiovascular medicine as a champion of scientific research and an innovator in the delivery of science through novel mechanisms, and his international voice on the importance of embracing scientific inquiry to improve the care of cardiovascular patients and promote life-long heart health.

The award will be given to a single physician annually for the next 15 years.

Valentin Fuster, MD, PhD, Director of Mount Sinai Heart and Physician-in-Chief of The Mount Sinai Hospital, right, with Dipti Itchhaporia, MD, FACC, President of the American College of Cardiology.

“I am grateful to have this award established in my honor. I am proud to begin this legacy and hope this motivates others to have a significant impact in the field of cardiovascular medicine,” Dr. Fuster said. “I look forward to meeting future honorees and learning about their contributions to combating heart disease and promoting health.”

Dr. Fuster is currently the Editor in Chief of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology (JACC), which ranks among the top cardiovascular journals in the world for its scientific impact. He is a past president of both the American Heart Association and the World Heart Federation. He is a member of the National Academy of Medicine, where he served as chair of the Committee on Preventing the Global Epidemic of Cardiovascular Disease, and was a Council member of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute. Dr. Fuster was also President of the Training Program of the American College of Cardiology.

Dr. Fuster’s research is unparalleled in areas relating to the causes, prevention, and treatment of cardiovascular disease globally, and spans the full range from hardcore basic science and molecular biology through clinical studies and large-scale multinational trials to population health and global medicine. He has 35 worldwide honorary degrees and is the most highly cited Spanish research scientist of all time, according to Google Scholar.

In addition to Dr. Fuster, four other top cardiovascular physicians from Mount Sinai Heart received prestigious honors at the ACC Scientific Session.

George Dangas, MD, PhD, Professor of Medicine (Cardiology) and Director of Cardiovascular Innovation at the Zena and Michael A. Wiener Cardiovascular Institute at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, was awarded the 2022 Master of the ACC Award by the American College of Cardiology. This recognizes and honors his consistent contributions to the goals and programs of the ACC and his leadership in important College activities. Recipients of this award must be members of the College for at least 15 years and have served with distinction and provided leadership on various College programs and committees.

Robert Rosenson, MD, Professor of Medicine (Cardiology) and Director of Cardiometabolic Disorders at Icahn Mount Sinai, and Gilbert Tang, MD, MSc, MBA, Professor of Cardiovascular Surgery at Icahn Mount Sinai, received the 2022 Simon Dack Award for Outstanding Scholarship for their exceptional contributions to JACC for their peer reviews. Dr. Rosenson and Dr. Tang are among five physicians to earn this distinguished honor for 2022. Criteria include reviewing more than 11 papers a year and being on time with their reviews 100 percent of the time. This is the sixth time Dr. Rosenson will receive this award, and the second time for Dr. Tang.

William Whang, MD, Associate Professor of Medicine (Cardiology) at Icahn Mount Sinai, has been named an Elite Reviewer for the Simon Dack Award for Outstanding Scholarship for contributing high-quality critiques to the journal. Criteria include reviewing more than nine papers a year and reviewing on time 85 percent of the time. Dr. Whang is among 10 physicians to receive this honor for 2022.  This will be Dr. Whang’s second time receiving the Elite Reviewer award.  He is also a two-time past recipient of the Simon Dack award.

Expert Advice on Diagnosing and Treating Aphasia

Aphasia is loss of the ability to understand or express spoken or written language. It commonly occurs after strokes or traumatic brain injuries. It can also occur in people with brain tumors or degenerative diseases that affect the language areas of the brain.

According to the National Aphasia Association, this disorder affects about two million people in the United States, and is more common than Parkinson’s disease, cerebral palsy, or muscular dystrophy, yet most people have never heard about it. That changed after the family of actor Bruce Willis announced he will step away from acting following a recent diagnosis of aphasia.

Laura Stein, MD, MPH

In this Q&A, Laura Stein, MD, MPH, Assistant Professor of Neurology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and attending physician at the Mount Sinai and Mount Sinai Queens Stroke Centers, discusses how aphasia is diagnosed, the potential burdens for families and caregivers, and some treatment options, notably treatments by speech-language pathologists.

What is aphasia?

Aphasia is a term doctors use to describe the loss of one’s ability to use their language function, or communicate with the world around them. It’s due to damage in the brain. It’s easy to lose sight of how all-encompassing language function is. It’s what we say with our words. It’s understanding others. It’s our ability to read, our ability to write, our ability to do everything in between. We have to remember that aphasia represents a symptom that patients experience or a sign doctors look for on their exams. It’s really just a term describing these problems with language and communication. It tells us nothing about why someone is having problems with their language and communication. I also want to acknowledge that aphasia can be profoundly difficult and frustrating for patients and their families. Our ability to communicate with the world around us is paramount to the human experience.

What are the signs and symptoms of aphasia?

The signs and symptoms of aphasia are actually quite varied, depending on the individual. Aphasia can be so mild that someone talking to an individual with an aphasia might not even know that they have it. In such a case, someone with a mild aphasia might have trouble coming up with words or the names of objects. At times, their speech may sound broken and fragmented, but they may still be able to communicate what they want to communicate and understand what people are saying, what they’re reading around them. Unfortunately, aphasia can be very debilitating at times, and some people have a difficult time making their needs known or understanding what’s going on around them. These can be very troubling and frustrating symptoms for patients and their families to live with.

How is aphasia diagnosed?

Aphasia is diagnosed with a detailed examination of one’s language function, and might be performed by a neurologist like myself, or a speech-language pathologist. It’s really important to assess every component of language function. We listen to what somebody says, whether spontaneously or with various prompts. We assess what they understand when they’re spoken to. We assess their ability to read, their ability to write, their ability to name everyday objects around them, their ability to repeat sentences that are spoken to them.

What causes aphasia?

The causes of aphasia can be quite varied. Anytime language function is abnormal, we worry about damage to specific locations of the brain where the language centers are located. In a majority of people, the language centers are on the left side of the brain, but in a small minority they may be on the right. Aphasia is more common in older individuals, and stroke is the most common cause  because of how many people have strokes in our society at older ages. However, there are many causes, like a degenerative disease that might cause dementia, a tumor, infection, or head trauma. But it’s really all about figuring out what part of the brain is not working normally, and why

What are the types of aphasia, and how do they differ?

There are multiple types of aphasia. The networks that underlie language function are complicated and interconnected. We’ll break it down in broad senses: There are expressive and receptive aphasias. With expressive aphasia, an individual has difficulty expressing themselves—speaking in sentences, coming up with words, writing; their speech may sound broken and fragmented. With receptive aphasia, an individual has more trouble understanding language, what people are saying, what they are reading. Someone may have a mixed aphasia, with expressive and receptive components. The most profound aphasia is a global aphasia, where all aspects of language function are impaired, and it is incredibly difficult to communicate with the world around you.

How is aphasia treated?

First and foremost, we have to understand what the cause of the aphasia is. Once we identify a cause, such as a stroke, we can think about treatments and if we can prevent the aphasia from getting worse. Beyond that, we think about how can we help the individual rehabilitate. We have outstanding speech-language pathologists who are specially trained in optimizing one’s language function and their ability to communicate with the world around them, despite their aphasia.

Match Day 2022: Graduating Medical Students Receive Their Residency Matches

During a special celebration, 124 students at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai learned what the next phase of their career path would be at Match Day 2022, when each of them opened a carefully sealed envelope that revealed the U.S. residency program they had “matched” to and would be attending this year following graduation.

The graduating Class of 2022 matched to 25 specialties and to many of the most competitive residency programs in the nation, including the Children’s Hospital in Philadelphia, Yale New Haven Hospital, Massachusetts General Hospital, Johns Hopkins and Washington University.  A total of 52 students will remain within the Mount Sinai Health System for at least part of their residency training.

The most popular specialties for matching students were Internal Medicine (23), Emergency Medicine (10), Anesthesiology (14), General Surgery (9), Obstetrics and Gynecology (9), and Psychiatry (8).

The School hosted a hybrid celebration on Friday, March 18, beginning with a fully-produced and highly energetic television show, culminating with a reveal of the matches and a carnival-themed after party. Each year, the matches are orchestrated through the National Resident Matching Program (NRMP), which uses mathematical algorithms to align the preferences of applicants with the preferences of residency programs available at teaching hospitals across the nation.

On Match Day, the Mount Sinai Health System also extended residency offers to 557 students from across the country, including graduates from sixteen of the nation’s top twenty medical schools, who will arrive in July.

Meet three of the graduates, who display the range of experiences and accomplishments of this year’s class.

Kimia Ziadkhanpour

Kimia Ziadkhanpour, the first in her family to become a doctor, matched to anesthesia at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.

Her interest in medicine began when she was six years old. In her native Tehran, she and her grandfather would hold hands as they traveled 30 miles on public buses to appointments with his cardiologist after he experienced a heart attack in his early 70s.

“At first his prognosis seemed good and his spirits were high; we would play in the yard every day,” she says. “But about a year and half later he died. My father tried to explain to me how he died, and none of it made sense to me. So I started searching for answers in books about science and anatomy.”

Indeed, as she grew older, Ms. Ziadkhanpour would wonder if her grandfather might have lived longer if he had had better care, or a doctor who was closer.

When she was seven, she moved to the United States, which opened doors to continue her interest in medicine later in life, first at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, then later at the Icahn School of Medicine.

“One of the things I will take away from my experience at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai is the idea that we treat every patient as if they are family, regardless of their background. And we give the same level of care to our patients, whether they come through the doors of our student run East Harlem Health Outreach Partnership and have no insurance or if they are from the wealthy, Upper East Side,” says Ms. Ziadkhanpour.

Thomas Fetherston

Thomas Fetherston matched to Tripler Army Medical Center in Hawaii through the military match in December. The only veteran in the class of 2022, Mr. Fetherston, a Second Lieutenant, served in the U.S. Army, where his experiences as a combat medic reinforced his interest in emergency medicine.

Having served a tour in Afghanistan, he traveled full circle when he and colleagues at Mount Sinai worked together to hold a clinic for evacuees of Afghanistan in New Jersey, in collaboration with the Church World Service, a faith-based organization that provides development, disaster relief, and refugee assistance around the world.

“The clinic was an incredibly meaningful culmination of my four years of medical school and Army service. In just one single day, we were able to evaluate 28 patients, four of whom needed immediate treatment and another 15 who need follow up treatment,” he says. The Health System and the medical school place a huge value on the community and the importance of providing service to address inequities in health care access, and this is just one small example.”

Thomas Fetherston outside of Souf village, near Kandahar in Afghanistan

Parth Trivedi

Parth Trivedi matched to Internal Medicine at The Mount Sinai Hospital.

In his fourth year as a medical student, Mr. Trivedi co-authored an important paper that was published in Gastroenterology in January, 2022, which described a troubling increase in early-onset colorectal cancer and precancerous polyps among adults under the age of 50. It was the first large-scale study to look at precancerous polyps in this age group, representing a significant contribution to the literature on early onset pre-cancerous lesions in this age group.

Mr. Trivedi, who helped design the study and provide statistical analysis, says he hopes the study will make a difference.

“We hope that the data we shared and our analysis will ultimately inform decision making by policymakers and primary care doctors on whom to screen and how early,” he says.

Nursing Excellence: A Valued Preceptor Role Models Emotional as Well as Clinical Patient Care

Megan Pace, RN, MSN, a nurse in the Intensive Care Unit at Mount Sinai Beth Israel

Megan Pace, RN, MSN, has been a nurse in the Intensive Care Unit at Mount Sinai Beth Israel since 2010. According to Maria LaTrace, RN, BSN, MSN, Senior Nursing Director, Patient Care Service at the hospital, Megan has always been a source of reliable and dependable guidance to her peers and is considered the “go to” for precepting and onboarding new nurses to the unit.

Within the past year, Megan has been a preceptor on almost every shift. Maria says that Megan displays tireless enthusiasm, patience, and diligence with the new staff members. “She is able to find the energy to make every single one of them feel that she or he is her priority.”

“It’s important to understand that nursing is more than just giving medications and charting at a computer, you have to remember there is a person and their loved ones on the receiving end of your care.”

Despite the incredible strain and cumulative burden of the past two years in ICU nursing, Megan is the “voice of reason” on her unit, Maria says. “She brings a measured sense of calm to every situation, which is invaluable for her orientees to witness, in that they see how to use rational, logical, and evidence-based reasoning in all decisions.”

That is certainly the case for one of Megan’s orientees, Jasmine Brinson, RN, BSN.

“Megan has been a great contributor to my smooth transition from medical surgical nursing to critical care. Venturing into a new specialty can be challenging and overwhelming, but Megan was always patient with me and encouraged me to ask as many questions as possible,” Jasmine says. “During my first week off orientation, I was so overwhelmed and felt unsure of myself. Megan was working on the opposite side of the unit, and she literally dropped everything and came to assist me, at the same time reassuring me that I was doing just fine.”

Having been a teacher before she moved into nursing, Megan feels she is perfectly suited to the role of preceptor.

“I have had some great role models throughout my career, and I have always strived to emulate their behaviors and make sure I am modeling those same behaviors for my orientees,” she says. “I think being a good role model is a key characteristic of being a good preceptor. It’s important to understand that nursing is more than just giving medications and charting at a computer, you have to remember there is a person and their loved ones on the receiving end of your care. When precepting, I try to stress the importance of the social and emotional aspect of nursing to my orientees. It is important they make it just as much of a priority as giving that medication or charting blood pressure.”

She adds, “These past two years have been rough for health care workers, but knowing that patients and their families appreciate my care makes it all worthwhile.”

SARS-CoV-2: Three Leading Microbiologists Discuss the Path Forward

From left: Florian Krammer, PhD, Adolfo García-Sastre, PhD, and Peter Palese, PhD

Microbiologists at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, who created the first and most reliable test to determine whether an individual has antibodies to SARS-CoV-2, have been monitoring the virus since it began circulating in Wuhan, China, in late 2019.

Now, Peter Palese, PhD, Horace W. Goldsmith Professor and Chair of the Department of Microbiology, and Florian Krammer, PhD, Mount Sinai Professor in Vaccinology— weigh in on the future of SARS-CoV-2 and its place in our lives. They, and their colleague, Adolfo García-Sastre, PhD, the Irene and Dr. Arthur M. Professor of Medicine, recently created a low-cost COVID-19 vaccine that can be manufactured wherever influenza vaccines are made—particularly in low-and-middle-income countries. The scientists are also working on a universal flu vaccine, which would confer immunity without having to be administered annually.

As we move away from this pandemic will SARS-CoV-2 continue to play a large part in our lives?  

Dr. Palese: Clearly the future is difficult to predict, but one likely scenario would be similar to the way we manage influenza viruses, which necessitates continuing vaccinations as we go into the future—perhaps once a year or once every two years. In this case, the virus continually changes but the effects can be ameliorated by vaccines, and those vaccines have to be changed. But they reduce fatality and hospitalization and the need for people to stay home.

Dr. Krammer: In this scenario the virus is not going to disappear. It’s just going to stick around and become the fifth coronavirus that circulates in humans. The other four coronaviruses make up about 30 percent of all common colds, and they’re seasonal; they come in the winter like influenza.

Dr. García-Sastre: Some of these common coronaviruses that cause the common cold have been with us for a long time and are very different from SARS-CoV-2. They are happily living with us, rarely cause any major disease, and do not cause a threat.

Dr. Krammer: Now, influenza typically causes more damage than these common coronaviruses which are typically causing mild infection, except in people who have problems with their immune system who are sometimes brought to the intensive care unit. I think SARS-CoV-2 will land somewhere between influenza and human coronaviruses—between those two extremes.

Is it possible that this virus will simply disappear?

Dr. Palese: You can never exclude the possibility that this virus will peter out the way the coronavirus (SARS-CoV-1) did twenty years ago, when it emerged to cause some really high fatalities but disappeared. On the one hand it was a nightmare, but then it was over.

Dr. Krammer: I don’t think the virus will just disappear, but it might. We didn’t think there would be so many variants this quickly, especially not something like Omicron, so there might be surprises. I hope for society’s sake that this fades into the background and we’re not afraid every fall that another wave is coming. The scenario I would like to see in six months is that Peter and I – as virologists – are concerned about it but that the problem is insignificant enough so that the public does not have to be. We’ll see if that happens.

How do we continue to ensure protection from COVID-19?

Dr. Krammer: We have to look at the baseline immunity that exists in the population. If a lot of people have immunity and there is less virus circulating chances are that you either don’t get infected or, if you get infected, your immunity will be protect you against severe outcomes. Then the disease and infections become less relevant. And that is what we hope for. Now, you can get there through vaccinations—that’s the painless way, or you can get there by having had the infections, and that’s the painful way. But both contribute to having higher baseline immunity in the population. Unfortunately, even in this scenario, immunocompromised patients are still at risk of severe outcomes although there risk of getting infected is lower.

Dr. García-Sastre: Vaccinations are still the solution to the problem. We should make sure that as many people as possible are vaccinated and boosted.

Dr. Krammer: I think we need to keep working on vaccines against SARS-CoV-2. Right now we have this situation where the vaccine protects very well against severe disease if you’re not immune compromised. But those vaccines are not protecting very well from infection anymore. They did against the original virus, but not with the variants. That’s why, for example, we need a variant-specific vaccine for Omicron. There are ways to make vaccines differently so you get more sterilizing immunity, which would suppress infections more, in general, and that would make the world safer for those who don’t mount good immune responses.

Dr. Palese: In creating our COVID-19 vaccine at Mount Sinai, we are using the Newcastle-disease virus in a vector-driven approach. If the FDA [U.S. Food and Drug Administration] is agreeable and allows the comprehensive use of genetically modified viruses, such as ours, then we can prevent the emergence of these new variants by vaccinating right away with the correct vaccine against the new variant, and we should be in good shape.

Do you think the public needs a fourth vaccine right now?

Dr. Krammer: For populations that don’t mount optimal responses or their responses disappear quickly, there might be an advantage in getting another dose. But for the general population, I don’t think this is useful right now. If there is a fourth dose, it should be variant-specific, an adapted vaccine that reflects what’s circulating right now.

For immunocompromised individuals, there are already a couple of important therapeutic treatments—including PAXLOVID from Pfizer Inc., operating under the FDA’s emergency use authorization—that can help them to greatly reduce their risk of a severe outcome.

Is it feasible to create a universal coronavirus vaccine—similar to the universal influenza vaccine you are developing?

Dr. Krammer: By universal you mean a variant-proof SARS-CoV-2 vaccine, I assume? One that would protect against all variants? We’ve made a lot of progress with the universal influenza vaccine in the last few years. But vaccine development has just started for coronaviruses and there are a lot of approaches out there. Coronaviruses are very diverse. A truly universal coronavirus vaccine would include protection against SARS-CoV-1 and other viruses in that subgenus and then you have a bigger genus of betacoronaviruses and, in addition, you have alpha-, delta-, and gammacoronaviruses (meant are the coronavirus genera, not the SARS-CoV-2 variants). So developing a universal coronavirus vaccine that would protect against all of them is a very big ask. It might be possible at some point, but it is small steps now and would take a lot of time. Of course, something that protects against variants that are around now or could be developed within the next five years, that’s actually possible.

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