Could SARS-CoV-1 Vaccines in the Pipeline Have Contributed to Fighting the COVID-19 Pandemic? Lessons for the Next Coronavirus Plague

Abstract

SARS-CoV-2 caused the devastating COVID-19 pandemic, which, to date, has resulted in more than 800 million confirmed cases and 7 million deaths worldwide. The rapid development and distribution (at least in high-income countries) of various vaccines prevented these overwhelming numbers of infections and deaths from being much higher. But would it have been possible to develop a prophylaxis against this pandemic more quickly? Since SARS-CoV-2 belongs to the subgenus sarbecovirus, with its highly homologous SARS-CoV-1, we propose here that while SARS-CoV-2-specific vaccines are being developed, phase II clinical trials of specific SARS-CoV-1 vaccines, which have been in the pipeline since the early 20th century, could have been conducted to test a highly probable cross-protection between SARS-CoV-1 and SARS-CoV-2.