I criticized this design internally at the Department of Medicine in Oxford, where I work, and I was silenced due to the political implications my statement had.
Sadly all vaccines share the same design, or no design at all. Hopefully the others may stimulate a broader repertoire of T cells, due to adjuvant and/or delivery differences, and this can lead to some epitope spreading thus remaining effective.
The fact so many vaccines where designed in such a short period of time is something to be praised, not criticized.
Now given this type of vaccine design work usually takes many years to complete, the fact these were designed in under a year is truly amazing.
To meet that tight deadline I have no doubt corners were cut and 'is good enough' design decisions were taken.
Given more time I'm sure things could have be done better, but the world community doesn't have the luxury of waiting several years for a 'perfectly designed' vaccine.
Your point only applies to those with a recombinant vector. But even on those, Oxford were so fast because they already had a developed platform and they were working on a very similar epitope.
Spending a bit more time would have been surely safer, and would not have delayed things significantly. What we have now might not be good enough after all, if it's true that the SA variant escapes immune recognition on individuals vaccined with Oxford-AZ. I hope to be wrong.
"South African health officials said they would inoculate health workers in the coming weeks with the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, which has strong efficacy in preventing severe cases and hospitalizations caused by the new variant."
So: some encouraging news, and some discouraging news.
