Developing pan-β-coronavirus vaccines against emerging SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern

The concurrent prevalence of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) raises the concern for the emergence of potential new β-CoV clades via genetic recombination, bearing high SARS-CoV-2-like transmissibility and high MERS-CoV-like mortality rates. Therefore, we argue that there is an urgent need to develop pan-β-CoV vaccines that can target not only current SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern, but also future putative SARS-CoV-3- or MERS-CoV-2-like coronavirus.