Influenza is a family of related viruses. COVID-19 is actually the disease caused by the virus. SARS-CoV-2 is the actual virus, and it is only a single virus in the family of coronaviruses. Other coronaviruses include SARS-CoV, MERS-CoV, and a host of others which just cause a subset of the common cold.
This should be compared more to something like the H1N1 outbreak, which was a single influenza virus that was particularly deadly for some subset of people. That was just one type of influenza.
Stupid question - why will a coronavirus vaccine take so long even when they say people are working at an incredible pace if we can produce a new flu vaccine each year? Are scientists guessing strains multiple years in advance so there is time to produce a vaccine or something?
Its not stupid. Its a new vaccine, to treat a new virus thats is in a class of virus thats never had a vaccine.
if that makes any sense?
the yearly flu vaccines are tweaks to an already understood vaccine, (minor releases) Sometimes there are major releases but thats for a jab that targets a different class of flu (h5n1 vs h1n2)
this is an entirely new vaccine, for a virus that has never had a vaccine, so its more like a v1.0 release on a new platform.
The flu vaccine is simply deactivated flu virus that is grown in eggs. The big issue here is that coronavirus is “smart” enough to not reproduce in eggs.
This should be compared more to something like the H1N1 outbreak, which was a single influenza virus that was particularly deadly for some subset of people. That was just one type of influenza.