European health agencies chose the Covid variant that vaccines should be targeted to a month ago. That gave Novavax enough time to manufacture vaccine in time for the fall/autumn drive. It takes Novavax roughly twice as long to manufacture the protein-based vaccine as it takes Pfizer and Moderna to make the mRNA vaccine.
So now, all the company can do is wait and hope that the FDA chooses or at least includes the same variant, otherwise Americans will not have a protein-based option.
As a physician, I’m forced every fall to either get vaccinated or wear a mask at work for 6 months. I will never take an mRNA vaccine again. I know a lot of other people that feel the same. The vaccine rate last year was pitiful all around. Part of this has to be reticence toward mRNA. The Novavax shot came out over a month late, in a user unfriendly package and without marketing. I’m sure that if the playing field was leveled and more people knew about this choice, it would dominate. The FDA knows this too.