Updated Vaccine Booster, Do the Vaccines Protect Against Severe Disease From Omicron?



Healthy - A new COVID-19 booster shot that is expected to become available in the fall of 2023 won’t be an exact match for EG.5, but experts expect it to help since it targets Omicron offshoot XBB 1.5, a close relative. 

Moderna announced that early clinical trials show that its booster shot will effectively target both the EG.5 and FL 1.5.1, another recent subvariant.

This past January, two studies suggested that the updated vaccine booster offered in fall 2022 (called a bivalent booster because it covered both the original SARS-CoV-2 strain and two Omicron subvariants, BA-4 and BA-5) continued to be effective against emerging Omicron strains. 

The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) published a study based on people 12 and older included in North Carolina’s state vaccine registry data that found it to be 58.7% effective against hospitalization compared to 25% for the monovalent one that preceded it; its effectiveness against infection was 61.8% compared to 24.9% for the monovalent. 

The study covered a period when Omicron BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 were also circulating, in addition to the strains the booster was designed to target.

Another study, from the CDC, assessed the bivalent vaccine’s real-world effectiveness against Omicron’s newest strains, XBB and XBB.1.5, in people who had previously received two to four monovalent vaccine doses. 

Scientists found that—at least for the first three months after vaccination—the updated booster’s effectiveness against the XBB subvariants was similar to what it was against BA.5.

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