covid: bivalent mRNA vaccine works on new subvariants
There is always some concern about the effectiveness of Covid vaccines as new variants emerge. Of course, to get good clinical data on vaccine effectiveness requires waiting months after that new variant has emerged / proliferated sufficiently/actual clinical effects can be assessed , and that data may not arrive before the next variant comes along. So, the best testing we can do quickly is assessing neutralizing antibodies. In this light, an impressive study was published showing that the newest variants (including BA.4, BA.5 and BA.2.75) were well covered by the new bivalent mRNA vaccine (the one they tested was mRNA-1273.214), see covid BA2.75 neutral by bivalent vax NEJM2022 in dropbox, or DOI: 10.1056/NEJMc2212772) Details : -- this study was based on assessing the geometric mean titers (GMTs) of neutralizing antibodies at a 50% inhibitory dilution, at day 29 after the administration of the bi...