The Bivalent Booster Protects Against New COVID-19 Variants, New Data Show

In this study, the bivalent booster was slightly better at generating virus-fighting antibodies than in previous studies, which found only small differences between people boosted with the original and bivalent vaccines in terms of antibodies generated against BQ.1.1 and XBB.1. (Unpublished data from these groups shows similarly small differences with XBB.1.5.) In those studies, however, blood wasn’t collected from people before and after their fourth booster dose; instead, the scientists compared blood from different groups of people who had been either boosted with the original or bivalent doses. A strength of the NEJM study is that “you can clearly calculate what is the contribution of the fourth dose and quantify the differences between the original and bivalent doses,” says Shi. Shi also notes that in previous studies, scientists used a so-called pseudovirus, which contained only the spike protein of the virus, to test in the lab how much antibody was present in the blood sera. In the current study, a more complete version of SARS-CoV-2 was used, which likely better mimics what happens in the body. Still, Shi acknowledges that the response produced by the bivalent vaccine against the newest variants isn’t dramatic. “We have to acknowledge that BQ.1.1. and XBB.1 really knock down or evade the antibody response substantially,” he says. The researchers also found that the virus-fighting antibody levels produced by vaccinated and boosted p...
Source: TIME: Health - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized COVID-19 healthscienceclimate Source Type: news