Study: Bivalent Booster Enhances Omicron Immunity After All

 

Not too long ago two studies came out on the new bivalent booster, one from Columbia and one from people at Harvard. Both showed that, in the words of the Columbia authors, 

bivalent mRNA vaccine targeting Omicron BA.4/BA.5 and an ancestral SARS-CoV-2 strain did not induce superior neutralizing antibody responses in humans, at the time period tested, compared to the original monovalent vaccine formulation.

At the time experts noted that both of these were based on very small samples. They said let's wait for some more robust findings to come out.

Now new results have been jointly released by Pfizer and Moderna. Their study has a larger sample (n = 114) that was stratified to include both 18-55 and over 65 age groups, both of whom got the new bivalent booster. There was also a comparison group of people over 65 who got another dose of the old vaccines. 

They measured everyone's antibody levels before, and found them to be the same. Then they looked that the levels one month after the shots and

the Omicron BA.4/BA.5 neutralizing antibody titers were approximately 4-fold higher for the bivalent vaccine compared to the companies’ original Covid-19 vaccine in individuals over 55 years of age. Further, when examining those with or without evidence of prior SARS-CoV-2 infection who received a booster dose of the bivalent vaccine, there was a significant increase in neutralizing antibodies against Omicron BA.4/BA.5 in both groups, which was greater in those without prior infection.

I suppose we should acknowledge that these results are from the people making the vaccines, so they could be gilding the lily. On the other hand the results were part of a registered clinical trial, so public health regulators are keeping a close eye on the proceedings.

I will note that—unlike previous boosters—I had a small systemic reaction to the new booster. Also I know quite a few people in an assisted living situation. They got boosted on Friday, and it really whacked a number of them.

As we now know, these systemic reactions to vaccines indicate how well your immune system responded to the inoculations. So these anecdotes are in line with the new findings.

Now we can only hope that the new booster has some effect on the new children-of-Omicron variants that are cropping up. Otherwise they might suppress the currently dominant variants the vaccine targeted, letting the newer, nastier ones take hold.

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