As the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic is nearing its eventual end we focus on what we believe are two key omissions from the mainstream scientific literature and which have significant implications for how mankind manages the next global pandemic. We review data, observations and conclusions from our papers published 2020 and 2021 on its likely cometary origin and global spread. We also revisit the superior effectiveness of intra-nasal vaccines against respiratory tract pathogens. While these two oversights seem disparate, together they provide us with new insights into our collective awareness of how we might view and address the next global pandemic. We begin with our hypothesis of its likely cometary origin via a bolide strike in the stratosphere on the night of October 11 2019 on the 40o N line over Jilin in NE China. Further global spread most likely occurred via prevailing wind systems transporting both the pristine cometary virus followed by continuing strikes from the same primary source as well as prior human passaged virus transmitted by person to person spread and through contaminated dust in global wind systems. We also include a discussion of our prior work on data relating to vaccine protective efficacy. Finally we review the totality of evidence concerning the likely origin and global spread of the predominant variants of the virus ‘Omicron’ (+ Delta mix?) from early to mid-December 2021 and extending into the first week January 2022. We describe the striking data showing the large numbers of infectious cases per day and outline the scale of what appears to be a global pandemic phenomenon, the causes of which are unclear and not completely understood. We discuss a number of mechanisms and explanations for this striking coo-ordinated global phenomenon. We conclude with an optimistic note for mankind. Given our prior knowledge on the effectiveness against respiratory tract pathogens of mucosal immunity involving induction of dimeric secretory IgA antibodies, we consider the recently published intra-nasal vaccine data from laboratories based at the University of California, San Francisco and, independently at Yale University, holds great promise for the future development of both pan-specific and specific immunity against future pandemics caused by suddenly emergent respiratory pathogens, whether viral and bacterial.