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Ask HN: Why don't we make harmless viral vector vaccines highly contagious?

5 points by yosito ↗ HN
It seems like making a viral vector vaccine that is highly contagious, yet still harmless, would be a good way to distribute a vaccinate quickly and with little resistance among entire populations. It seems that we have the technology to do this. Are we working on it? Why haven't we done it yet?

4 comments

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detaro
As far as I understand: Viral vector vaccines use viruses that are not capable of reproducing, so you can be reasonably sure they won't reproduce to much and overload the immune system or otherwise do harm through that. If you want a contagious virus, you need to allow it to reproduce, which thus makes it a lot less safe and even if you somehow have a safe variant (it's far from something we can easily do), it now can mutate to something worse.

And if you get it wrong, you now have a second pandemic to fight.

If it's incompatible with some people, bad luck for them, can't stop using it on them after discovery.

TL;DR: not easy and basically impossible to do ethically

tomcam
Find a virologist who will guarantee a harmless vaccine first.
Leparamour
Because viruses mutate? Even something that is harmless in the beginning might become lethal later on. And even a "harmless" virus might kill immuno-compromised or weakened individuals.

Your idea reminds me of using a computer worm to patch backdoors. I'm sure I've read of this before.

giantg2
"with little resistance among entire populations"

This mindset is very dangerous in my opinion.

People need to have consent. There are people who cannot recieve vaccines due to medical reasons. Would you just release something without people's consent that could kill and injure a portion of them?