Moderna has announced that their bivalent booster candidate produces more neutralizing titers against Omicron and all other variants of concern than their original booster, and that this increased level lasts for 6 months. They’re now testing a bivalent booster with even more specific Omicron targeting, they expect phase 2/3 initial results in Q2 and those will inform their fall booster decisions.
Everything they’ve tested so far with bivalent boosters has been well tolerated and in line with side effects from the boosters of the original formula.
The study has not yet been reviewed by independent scientists and produced mixed reactions from outside experts.
“This paper is a ‘proof of principle’ that supports the concept of a bivalent mRNA vaccine,” wrote Nathaniel Landau, a microbiologist at New York University, in an email to NPR. But Landau agreed a omicron-specific version would probably be the most useful.
Dr.Jesse Goodman, a former top Food and Drug Administration scientist now at Georgetown University, agreed the results are encouraging. But he also noted the approach needs to be confirmed by additional research.
“Other things could be at play in making the bivalent booster look better,” Goodman wrote in an email to NPR.
John Moore, an immunologist at Weil Cornell Medicine, called the results “unimpressive” in an email to NPR. “What’s here is unlikely to support the rollout of this type of bivalent vaccine — the benefits would not justify the expense and hassle.”
Dr.Celine Gounder, an infectious disease expert at Kaiser Health News, said the company’s announcement “seems misleading” because
it compared the antibodies from just two doses of the original vaccine with a third dose of the new vaccine.
This would be good news not reason for caution - and they’re already testing that.
I’m not sure what those things might be?
I mean, they didn’t release the actual data, just a statement about it… I don’t think the rollout carries much additional cost versus using the original formula again.
This is false, they compared it to a third shot of the same dose level of the original vaccine formula.
Have a friend who posted a picture of herself on Facebook today at an airport and wrote, “Mask free, baby!”
Someone replied that they still don’t trust others and to be safe, to which she replied, “be afraid, be afraid, be afraid, Nope!”
She also posted a video “story” of her walking down the aisle of plane and people cheering. She captioned it, “History.”
What’s weird is I don’t she is/was an anti-masker. She’s a Republican, but strongly anti-Trump (she’s socially liberal, fiscally conservative) and IIRC, would sometimes post data/graphs countering anti-vax sentiment. So strange.
EDIT: I just looked back at her posts and she most definitely made pro-mask posts, mocking MAGAs who were anti-mask.
I’ll be going to a home game tomorrow that popped back up specifically to avoid the new mask mandates in Philly, and I’ll be wearing an N95. Should be a blast!
Give me your best comebacks for the inevitable verbal lashing I’ll take!
Interesting take from a YouTuber in Shenzen who basically says Shanghai fucked up but the rest of China is doing great and the Zero Covid policies are popular.
She says that the policy was basically really quick triggers for 2 week lockdowns if any cases got into a city/area, and that kept them at Zero Covid and living a pretty normal life with 2-week interruptions here and there. Shanghai decided, nah, fuck that, we’re going to prioritize the economy and not lock down so quickly and oops… it got out of hand FAST. Now they’re stuck in worse lockdowns.
She says basically they see the case numbers in the rest of the world and think we’re crazy and their way is working, other than the Shanghai fuck up - and they’ll probably go back to the old way and it’ll keep working.
they see most people they interact with outside of their day job as menial servants. you work at the grocery store? I PAY YOUR SALARY, do not speak to me. Etc.