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Notes -
ELI5. Why many vaccines against diseases that can infect in tiny airborne droplets must be administered via injection which creates noticeable discomfort and, in case of some, very noticeable scar?
Agree with Ren, but an even more direct cause is "because they seem to work better". Biology and especially the immune system are just very complicated, and it's very difficult to predict a priori what will work. Convincing-sounding rationales for claims about drugs, even ones that convince experts, fail all the time, and testing them is very laborious, which is a big part of why drug development is so insanely expensive. And as a result nasal vaccines have been attempted many times, including for covid, and (usually) aren't as effective as injected vaccines.
This also means that maybe, in the future, nasal vaccines will re-emerge, or even become dominant, as technology and our understanding of the immune system improves! Probably not, but who knows.
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