CDC bivalent boosters

This covid winter should be better than last

Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, President Biden’s chief medical adviser

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/22/us/politics/fauci-covid-winter-surge.html

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/11/22/covid-bivalent-booster/?utm_campaign=wp_to_your_health&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_tyh

Combination of infections and vaccinations,

enough community protection that we’re not going to see a repeat of what we saw last year at this time

Re bivalent effectiveness

It is clear now, despite an initial bit of confusion

United States

Nearly $5 billion to buy 171 million bivalent boosters

(Pfizer BioNTech, Moderna)

Hobson’s choice

Dr. Ashish K. Jha, White House’s Covid-19 response coordinator

Still heavily promoting vaccination

Nothing I have seen in the subvariants makes me believe that we can’t manage our way through it effectively, especially if people step up and get their vaccine

So far, 35 million people, (11% of over 5s) one bivalent shot

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7148e1.htm?s_cid=mm7148e1_w

Effectiveness of Bivalent mRNA Vaccines in Preventing Symptomatic SARS-CoV-2 Infection — Increasing Community Access to Testing Program, United States, September–November 2022

This is the clinical trial, previous work had only been based on antibodies

Benefits are mentioned, adverse reactions are not

Any adverse reactions not reported

v-safe

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7144a3.htm?s_cid=mm7144a3_w

Systemic symptoms

Fatigue (30.0%–53.1%)

Headache (19.7%–42.8%)

Myalgia (20.3%–41.3%)

Fever (10.2%–26.3%)

Reported inability to complete normal daily activities

10.6% among aged over 65 years

19.8% among aged 18–49 years

Bivalent boosters provided significant additional protection against symptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection

Relative vaccine effectiveness (rVE) of a bivalent booster dose,

compared with that of more than 2 monovalent vaccine doses,

30% and 56% aged 18–49

with relative benefits increasing with time since receipt of the most recent monovalent vaccine dose.

Staying up to date with COVID-19 vaccination, including getting a bivalent booster dose when eligible, is critical to maximizing protection against COVID-19

350,000 tests at almost 10,000 retail pharmacies between Sept. 14 and Nov. 11

Relative risk given

Absolute risk not given

What about protection from severe disease?

Paul Offit, director of the vaccine education center, professor of pediatrics, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia

The only reasonable goal is to prevent serious illness,

We are still waiting for one shred of evidence that this bivalent vaccine or any bivalent is better than what we had

Virus continues to evolve

This should be a cautionary tale for what happens when you try to chase these variants

Celine Gounder, infectious-disease specialist, Kaiser Family Foundation

It doesn’t show the bivalents are better than the original boosters

(but still advocated the bivalent shot)

Pei-Yong Shi, virologist, University of Texas Medical Branch

difficult to measure how well the updated boosters were working because so many people now had some immunity from earlier infections,

including people who were never vaccinated or boosted.

John P. Moore, virologist, Weill Cornell Medicine

Are the boosters working better than the original shots?

Personally, I doubt there would have been much, if any, difference, but we may never know

Dr. Roby Bhattacharyya, infectious disease physician, Massachusetts General Hospital

This winter should be better than last

we’re a more immune population

China

https://www.reuters.com/world/china/chinas-daily-covid-cases-hit-record-high-2022-11-24/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=daily-briefing&utm_term=11-24-2022

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/11/24/iphone-factory-staff-offered-1400-leave-immediately-desperate/

Record high COVID-19 infections

Rigid zero-COVID policy

Cities nationwide imposing localised lockdowns

Mass testing, masks

No furlough scheme