Second Bivalent Booster?

[bmcgonig]

Exactly I care much more about vaccine effectiveness against death, severe illness, and long covid than effectiveness vs infection. Also VE will decline with time from vaccination so one would expect the era of newer strains to be associated with less effectiveness This point is rather obvious but I didn't see it addressed in thee "limitations" section of thee preprint.

I believe that the protection against disease is already present given previous vaccination. I haven’t heard anything that says that a new booster will increase that long-term help. Maybe I missed it. If that is true then I’m not sure of it’s usefulness if you get XBB.

 

[Montecfo]

Saw a preprint from researchers who suggest that bivalent boosters should stop using the ancestral strain spike protein when they update bivalent boosters to the latest strain, in order to minimize immunity imprinting or what they call original antigenic sin.



https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.05.01.538516v2





They found that repeated Omicron infections reduced this imprinting phenomenon and increased nAb titers. Of course instead of deliberately getting infected, they would advocate getting updated boosters.



Question is whether there is interest and funding to continue to update, make and distribute updated bivalent boosters.



Not only is the Covid 19 emergency status ending, both in the US federal govt and the WHO designation, booster uptake is declining every time new boosters are rolled out.



So there may not be an economic case for Moderna and Pfizer to continue to put out new boosters.

I think you are probably right. And regular authorization appears to not be in view.

 

[explanade]

Well Safeway pharmacy let me schedule but when I showed up, they printed out my appt. and told me I'm not eligible for a second bivalent booster since I'm under 65.

So I scheduled one for CVS. Gave them my insurance, which I'm loath to do because they're far away and I would never used them as a regular pharmacy.

 

[brett]

Had our second covid booster (over 65), our DPT vaccine (it has been 10 plus years) and a pneumonia 23 vaccine.

All good. No issues.

 

[RetMD21]

WHO is recommending monovalent XBB boosters for the fall. Apparently the FDA meets in June. We'll see what they recommend: https://www.who.int/news/item/18-05-2023-statement-on-the-antigen-composition-of-covid-19-vaccines

 

[pacergal]

It makes sense to create an annual booster based on what seems to be circulating. That is how they create annual "flu" vaccine.

 

[euro]

Just got my second bivalent. Sort of puts me on a May/November booster schedule. Good because we see 91yo MIL every June/July and every Dec/Jan.

So far, I have avoided getting infected - at least as far as I can tell (I do test after being in larger crowds or when I suspect I might be sick, but so far, all negative). Knock on wood it stays that way.

 

[FIYes]

I got the second bivalent booster. Interestingly, I had more of a reaction to it than to the first bivalent booster..sore arm and achy feeling for one day. No big deal, but interesting.

Hope that we don’t get Covid or anything else in our upcoming travels. Fingers crossed and masks ready.

 

[RetMD21]

It looks like the FDA is leaning toward what the WHO recommended XBB only booster for the fall https://www.npr.org/sections/health...ack-updated-covid-shots-for-fall-vaccinations

 

[explanade]

Can a monovalent with current strain target undo 2 years of imprinting from the Wuhan strain target used in all vaccines and boosters until now?

Also apparently NovaVax will update their vaccine to XBB and may also go monovalent.

May be a good complement to mRNA to get the adjuvant.

 

[Gumby]

The posts regarding the newly available booster have been moved here. https://www.early-retirement.org/forums/f55/current-covid-booster-september-2023-a-119317.html This thread is being closed.