Editorial: How Jewish space lasers and vaccine nanobots seized the brains of GOP voters St. Louis Post-Dispatch
The U.S. authorized the first major makeover of the Covid-19 vaccines this week in an effort to stem an expected tide of infections and hospitalizations this fall.
But it's unclear how much protection the new booster shots will provide. The Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention cleared the shots without any data from clinical trials that are testing the reformulated doses in humans.
The new boosters, authorized for people ages 12 and older, target the highly contagious and immune-evasive omicron BA.5 subvariant that has caused a wave of breakthrough infections over the summer. The shots also target the original strain of the virus that first emerged in Wuhan, China, in 2019.
The nation's top health officials acted with urgency this summer to ensure the new boosters would roll out in time for the fall. They are worried that the waning effectiveness of the old vaccines is creating an opening for omicron to cause another wave of hospitalizations this winter as people spend more time indoors where the airborne virus spreads more easily.
Deaths and hospitalizations have climbed since April among the elderly, the most vaccinated age group in America, as omicron has continued to mutate into more and more transmissible subvariants that dodge the protection of the original vaccines, according to Heather Scobie, a CDC epidemiologist.
Dr. Peter Marks, who heads the FDA office that reviews vaccines, said the new boosters aim to restore the high levels of protection that vaccines demonstrated in early 2021. But Marks acknowledged that the federal government's experts simply do not know yet whether the boosters will meet the high bar set by those doses.
"We don't know for a fact yet whether we will get to that same level, but that is the goal here. And that is what we believe the evidence that we've seen helps point to," Marks told reporters during a news conference after the FDA authorization Wednesday.
The FDA will conduct surveillance to see whether the boosters meet that goal, Marks said. When Pfizer's and Moderna's shots were authorized in December 2020, they provided more than 90% protection at preventing Covid.
Marks told reporters it will likely take at least another couple of months before human data on the BA.5 boosters is available to the public. But he said the FDA used basically the same process to authorize the new boosters that it has relied on for years to switch the virus strains in flu shots.
"We're pretty confident that what we have is very similar to the situation that we've done in the past with influenza changes where we don't do clinical studies for them in the United States," Marks said. "We know from the way the vaccine works, and from the data that we have, that we can predict how well the vaccine will be working."
The new boosters could prevent 2.4 million infections, 137,000 hospitalizations and 9,700 deaths if a new variant doesn't emerge, according to a projection by a team of scientists that forecasts the trajectory of the pandemic, called theCovid-19 Scenario Modeling Hub.
But that projection is based on optimistic assumptions about booster coverage and efficacy, according to the scientists. The model assumes that the shots will prove 80% effective at preventing illness and the public will broadly embrace the new boosters. There is no efficacy data on the new shots and it's unclear how strong public demand will be for them.
The CDC estimates that an early fall vaccination campaign with boosters could save the U.S. between $63 billion and $109 billion in medical costs by preventing hospitalizations and ICU admissions.
Pfizer and Moderna were originally developing new boosters to target the first version of omicron, BA.1, that caused the massive wave of infection and hospitalization last winter. But keeping up with the rapid evolution of the virus has proved challenging.
By the time the nation's top health leaders moved in earnest in April to get new boosters ready, more transmissible subvariants had already driven omicron BA.1 out of prevalence. In June, the FDA asked the vaccine makers to switch gears and target omicron BA.5 after it rose to dominance.
This decision did not leave enough time for Pfizer and Moderna to complete human clinical trials on the new boosters before a fall vaccine rollout.
As a consequence, the FDA and the CDC are relying on human data from the clinical trials of the BA.1 shots to understand how the BA.5 boosters might perform. They also relied on data from studies in which the BA.5 boosters were tested in mice.
The CDC's independent advisory committee backed the shots on Thursday in an overwhelming vote.
But several members of the panel also had reservations about the lack of human data.
"I really do struggle with a vaccine that has no clinical data that's reported for humans, for those that would be actually receiving the vaccine," said Dr. Oliver Brooks, a committee member and the chief medical officer at Watts HealthCare Corp. in Los Angeles.
Dr. Pablo Sanchez, the only CDC committee member who voted against the shots, called the decision to recommend the new boosters without human data premature.
"There's a lot of vaccine hesitancy already we need the human data," said Sanchez, a professor of pediatrics at Ohio State University.
Dr. Doran Fink, deputy head of the FDA's vaccine review division, told hesitant committee members that the new booster shots use the exact same manufacturing process as the old vaccines and contain the same total amount of mRNA, the code that instructs human cells to produce the proteins that provoke an immune response to defend against Covid.
Fink said the BA.1 and the BA.5 shots are similar enough to use data from the BA.1 human trials to get a good idea of how the new BA.5 boosters will perform.
Pfizer and Moderna presented data at the CDC meeting which showed that the BA.1 shots triggered a stronger immune response in humans than the old vaccines. The mouse studies from both companies on the BA.5 shots also showed a stronger immune response.
CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky last week said waiting longer for human data from the BA.5 shots could mean the boosters become outdated if a new variant emerges.
"There's always a question here of being too slow versus too fast," Walensky told "Conversations on Health Care" in a radio interview. "One of the challenges is if we wait for those data to emerge in human data ... we will be using what I would consider to be a potentially outdated vaccine."
Moderna completed enrollment in its clinical trials last week and expects results by the end of the year. Pfizer's clinical trials are ongoing, though the company hasn't provided a time frame on when it will have data.
Brooks questioned why the FDA decided to go with a BA.5 vaccine when clinical data is available for the BA.1 shots that the vaccine makers were originally developing. Canada and the United Kingdom have authorized new booster shots that target omicron BA.1
Fink said the U.S. selected BA.5 based on the advice of the FDA's independent committee, data from South Africa that indicated natural infection from the subvariant provides broader protection than infection from BA.1, and the fact that BA.5 is dominant.
Though the committee members had some hesitation about proceeding without the human data, they agreed the new boosters should have a similar safety profile to the old vaccines because they use the same platform. The Covid vaccines have been administered to millions of people in the U.S. with mostly mild side effects.
The most common side effects from the human trials of the BA.1 shots was pain, redness, swelling at the injection site, fatigue, headaches, muscle pain, joint pain, chills, nausea, vomiting and fever, according to the FDA.
Dr. Sara Oliver, a CDC official, told the committee that the risk of myocarditis, inflammation of the heart muscle, after a BA.5 booster is unknown. But health officials anticipate it will be similar to the risk observed with the old vaccines.
Pfizer's and Moderna's vaccines have been associated with an elevated risk of myocarditis in young men and adolescent boys mostly after the second dose. But the risk of myocarditis is higher from Covid infection than vaccination, according to the CDC.
Dr. Grace Lee, the CDC committee chair, sought to reassure the public that there's a robust surveillance system to monitor safety, and that the panel will meet again if any new concerns emerge.
"I just want to make sure that the members of the public are aware that we're continuing to monitor closely," Lee said. "We have systems and teams that are continuing to monitor and to meet."
Updated COVID-19 booster shots are on their way! The FDA authorized new and improved booster shots from Moderna and Pfizer for emergency use. CDC recommended the boosters as well. Further review by Western States Scientific Review Group and Washington State Department of Health should be complete early next week. Doses should be available soon.
Got questions? Weve got answers.
Whats different about the updated boosters?
COVID-19 vaccines already provided strong protection against hospitalization and death. This bivalent vaccine offers more protection because it targets both the original COVID-19 strain AND the currently circulating BA.4 and BA.5 omicron variants. These vaccines are more like the annual flu vaccines that target different flu strains.
Who should get these booster doses?
Anyone 12 or older who got their initial series of vaccinations or latest booster dose at least 2 months ago.
The FDA authorized the:
Full authorization is not yet final. Eligibility could change.
I was scheduled to get a booster. Should I wait?
YES! You may have to wait a little longer. But this booster will provide better protection.
When can I get one?
The Western States Scientific Review Group and Washington State Department of Health will need to approve the new boosters before we will be able to give them locally.
That could happen as soon as next week, but we dont know for sure. Some age groups or immunocompromised people may be given priority for the short term. Check our social media or website for updates.
Will there be enough for everyone?
Eventually, yes. We expect Pierce County to get 9,000 doses of Pfizer and 3,000 doses of Moderna to start. Well work quickly to get those to providers and in our vaccine clinics as soon as possible.
I havent been vaccinated yet. Will I get this vaccine for my initial doses?
No. These doses are not for primary-series vaccination. They are boosters for people who got their primary-series vaccinations or latest booster dose at least 2 months ago.
And if you havent been vaccinated yet, you should. Find your dose at tpchd.org/vaxtothefuture.
Last week, we updated information on our vaccine dashboard. During the peak six months of the omicron wave, compared to those who completed their initial vaccine series, unvaccinated people in Pierce County were:
What about booster shots for kids under 12?
Everyone 5-11 years old can still receive the current Pfizer and Moderna boosters 5 months after their primary series of vaccine.
COVID-19 viruses affecting the heart, conceptual 3D illustration. Heart complications associated ... [+] with COVID-19 coronavirus disease. The negative effect of SARS-CoV-2 virus on the human heart.
With new research on Long Covid emerging every day, it is becoming increasingly clear that Covid-19 infection impacts our health beyond the acute stage of the illness. A study demonstrates that infection with Covid-19 impacts the risk of cardiovascular events up to 12 months post-infection, regardless of age, race, sex, and other cardiovascular risk factors. This study emphasizes the recognition of and the need for more effective strategies to address the long term effects of Covid-19.
A group of researchers from the Clinical Epidemiology Center in Saint Louis, Missouri investigated the risk and excess burden of cardiovascular disease following the acute phase of Covid-19. In the study, over 150,000 veterans who had recovered from infection were compared with non-infected peers, in addition to a pre-pandemic control group. Xie and colleagues followed these three groups for twelve months and conducted a thorough analysis to estimate the risk and associated burden of cardiovascular outcomes.
Who and What Factors were Considered?
Xie and colleagues obtained information from databases managed by the United States Department of Veteran Affairs to construct their three cohorts. Of the 6,241,346 veterans who encountered the department of Veteran Affairs in 2019, 162,690 had a positive Covid-19 test between March 1st 2020 and January 15th 2021. 153,760 of such individuals were alive 30 days after their positive test date and selected into the Covid-19 test group. Researchers based the average date of the positive test for the cohort, T0, based on the distribution of the positive Covid-19 test dates.
5,960,737 veterans who encountered the department of Veteran Affairs in 2019 and were alive by March 1st, 2020; 5,806,977 of such individuals were not part of the Covid-19 group and were selected into the contemporary control group. Xie et al randomly chose the average enrollment date for the cohort, T0, which would allow for the participant distribution to be identical to the distribution of the Covid-19 group. In doing so, the contemporary control group and the Covid-19 cohort had similar follow-up times.
Xie et al selected individuals who encountered the department of Veteran Affairs in 2017 to be part of the pre-pandemic cohort. Of the 6,461,205 veterans, 6,150,594 of them were alive by March 1st 2018. 6,008,499 were not included in the Covid-19 cohort and were further chosen to be included in the pre-pandemic group. Researchers randomly selected the average enrollment date for the group, T0, which would allow for the participant distribution to be the same as the distribution of the Covid-19 group. This action similarly ensured that the historical control group and Covid-19 group had identical follow-up times.
The cardiovascular outcomes assessed were based on Xie and colleagues previous work regarding Long Covid. These outcomes include cerebrovascular disorders, dysrhythmia, inflammatory heart disease, ischemic heart disease, thrombotic disorders, and other cardiovascular diseases. Researchers conducted a follow-up for each cardiovascular outcome that the participant had no prior history with one year before their enrollment date. The follow up period began 30 days after the average enrollment date, T0, and ended by October 31st 2021.
Xie et al considered pre-defined and algorithmically selected variables to account for any baseline differences between the cohorts. Previous studies have shown that race, sex, body mass index, Area Deprivation index, smoking status, frequency of hospitalization, and use of long term care can influence risk and associated burden of cardiovascular outcomes. Xie and colleagues identified
cancer, chronic kidney disease, diabetes, and several other comorbidities as variables to also consider. In addition, they adopted an algorithm that determined the top 100 variables with the highest risk relative to the cardiovascular outcome and cohort. The program factored the diagnoses, medications, and lab abnormalities common in at least 100 members of the cohort. Researchers tested each cardiovascular outcome within each cohort independently so the algorithm could be applied.
Recovered from Infection Vs. Never Infected Vs. Pre-Pandemic: What Happened?
In the study, Xie et al estimated the risk, burden, and excess burden up to 12 months post infection of cardiovascular outcomes through inverse probability weighting, a common method used to estimate the probability of exposure observed for a particular person and using the value as a weighting factor in further analyses.
In this case, researchers calculated a propensity score, which describes the chance of being selected to the target population, for individuals who had no prior history (up to one year before enrollment) for each specific cardiovascular outcome. These scores estimated the probability of being a veteran who encountered the department of Veteran Affairs in 2019 based on the pre-defined and algorithmically selected variables; they were then used to calculate the inverse probability weight of being part of the sample who interacted with the department in 2019. Additionally, researchers applied the weight scores in hazard ratio models for each cardiovascular outcome. These models estimated the risk of each cardiovascular complication caused by Covid-19, using death as the other, competing risk.
Among the pre-specified cardiovascular outcomes, those who recovered from the acute phase of infection had higher risk of all pre-specified cardiovascular outcomes in comparison to those who were not infected. The composite scores for each group of cardiovascular outcome were above one, indicating increased risk: cerebrovascular disorders scored 1.530.16 , dysrhythmias scored 1.69 0.11, inflammatory heart disease scored 2.02 0.53, ischemic heart disease scored 1.66 0.28, thromboembolic disorder scored 2.39 0.24, and other cardiovascular disorders scored 1.72 0.14 . In particular, veterans who survived the first 30 days following a positive test result exhibited higher risk of myocarditis (5.38 3.79), cardiac arrest (2.45 0.81), cardiogenic shock (2.43 1.30), and pulmonary embolism (2.93 0.42).
Xie et al estimated the associated burden of cardiovascular outcomes caused by Covid-19 per 1,000 people at twelve months based on the differences between the estimated rate of Covid-caused cardiovascular outcomes caused in the Covid-19 cohort and the contemporary control cohort. They found similarly high and excess burdens with all cardiovascular outcomes. The associated excess burden for heart failure (11.61 2.78) and atrial fibrillation (10.74 2.3) were especially high.
Taking care setting into consideration, risks and associated burdens persisted among those who were not hospitalized for infection, which gradually increased with severity of infection. Participants who were not hospitalized, representing the majority of the US general population, had higher risk and excess burden for cardiovascular disease than those who were not infected by Covid-19. Those who were hospitalized for infection had higher risk and associated burdens than those who did not, and those who were admitted to intensive care had the highest risk of cardiovascular disease and excess burden.
Relative to the pre-pandemic control group, participants who recovered from Covid-19 infection had higher risk and excess burden of any pre-specified cardiovascular disease per 1,000 individuals in one year. The results of each assessment were consistent to what was found when comparing the covid-19 cohort with the contemporary control group.
A few studies suggested a potential association of some Covid vaccines and a very rare risk of heart or pericardium inflammation; Xie et al conducted two analyses to diminish any potential impact vaccine exposure may have had on cardiovascular outcomes. In their first test, researchers excluded participants who received their first dose of a Covid-19 vaccine. In the second assessment, they considered vaccination status as a time-sensitive covariate. In both analyses, Covid-19 was associated with higher risk of both heart and pericardium inflammation. This set of findings reinforces the importance of getting vaccinated.
Xie and colleagues validated their analytical approach by testing variables with expected outcomes. They tested the association between Covid-19 and the signature risk of fatigue; Covid-19 increased the risk of experiencing fatigue, as expected. Researchers tested the association between receiving a flu shot on even-numbered versus odd-numbered calendar days and the pre-specified cardiovascular outcomes. Following the same analytical approach and resources as the study, they found no significant association between the even versus odd-numbered calendar day of the influenza shot and pre-specified cardiovascular outcomes.
The cardiovascular disease risk associated with Covid-19 infection further highlights how we need a coordinated global response strategy to urgently address the challenges of dealing with the long-term health effects of Covid-19. Physicians should also be adjusting their screening questions to include past infection with Covid-19 and assess for all Long Covid symptoms including cardiovascular. Early identification, diagnosis, and treatment of heart disease are essential to lessen the risk of adverse health impacts.
With updated COVID-19 boosters being recommended to provide increased protection against the circulating omicron variant, a new paper by University of Hawaii at Mnoa and Waianae Coast Comprehensive Health Center (WCCHC) researchers is shedding light on who is getting booster shots in Hawaii, and how trust and consumption of different information sources affect that decision.
The paper, Dynamics of Trust and Consumption of COVID-19 Information Implicate a Mechanism for COVID-19 Vaccine and Booster Uptake, was published August 31, in Vaccines.
Results of the study show individuals vaccinated within two months of eligibility tended to have more years of schooling, with greater trust in and consumption of official sources of COVID-19 information, in comparison to those who waited three to six months, or those who remained unvaccinated at six months post-eligibility. Most or 70% of those individuals who were vaccinated within two months of eligibility took the booster shot, compared to only 30.5% of those who waited three to six months, with the latter group gaining trust and consumption of official information after four months.
This study shows that social factors, including education and individual-level degree of trust in sources of COVID-19 information, played a large part in whether someone decided to get a booster shot, said Ruben Juarez, an economics professor in UH Mnoas College of Social Sciences and HMSA Endowed Professor of Health Economics at UHERO. COVID-19 booster hesitancy remains an issue in our community, and understanding what contributes to this has significant implications to ongoing public health responses as we enter a new phase in the pandemic.
Working in collaboration with the Pacific Alliance Against COVID-19, UH researchers surveyed almost 1,600 Hawaii adults enrolled in the groups COVID-19 testing program. Study participants completed standardized surveys from January to February 2021 on demographics, vaccination status and trust in sources of COVID-19 information during the delta wave. Of those, about 800 individuals or 50.3% completed a follow-up survey from January to February 2022 during the omicron wave.
Results from our study reinforces the need to nurture trust and promote health literacy in our community, which our model predicts will improve vaccine uptake, including boosters. This is especially important given new COVID-19 vaccines recently announced by the FDA that target the Omicron variant that is currently circulating in our population, said Alika Maunakea, John A. Burns School of Medicine (JABSOM) associate professor.
Added May Okihiro, JABSOM associate professor and pediatrician at WCCHC, This data provides critical information for the Department of Health and our community of health centers to act on the development of effective strategies that include vaccination to help us emerge out of this pandemic.
In addition to Juarez, Maunakea and Okihiro, other co-authors include:
Flags at the Washington Monument commemorate Americans who died from COVID-19. In 2021, life expectancy in the U.S. fell for the second year in a row. Spencer Platt/Getty Images hide caption
Flags at the Washington Monument commemorate Americans who died from COVID-19. In 2021, life expectancy in the U.S. fell for the second year in a row.
Life expectancy in the U.S. fell in 2021, for the second year in a row. It was the first time life expectancy dropped two years in a row in 100 years.
In 2019, someone born in the U.S. had a life expectancy of 79 years. In 202o, because of the pandemic, that dropped to 77 years. In 2021 life-span dropped again to 76.1 years. And for some Americans, life expectancy is even lower, according to a provisional analysis from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
"The results of this study are very disturbing," says Dr. Steven Woolf, a professor of population health and health equity at Virginia Commonwealth University. "This shows that U.S. life expectancy in 2021 was even lower than in 2020," he says.
Other high-income countries have seen a rebound in life expectancy, which Woolf says makes the U.S. results "all the more tragic."
One of the most dramatic drops in life expectancy in 2021 was among American Indian and Alaska Native people.
Between 2019 and 2021, the life expectancy for this population fell by 6.6 years, to 65.2.
"That's horrific," Woolf says. "The losses in the Native American population have been terrible during the COVID-19 pandemic. And it reflects a lot of barriers that tribal communities face in getting access to care," he says.
Life expectancy for this community is now the same as it was for the whole population in the 1940s, says Elizabeth Aria of the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics who was the lead author of the report.
"To see the decline over the two-year period for this population was 6.6 years was jarring," Aria says.
Despite a high vaccine uptake in this community, American Indians are 2.2 times more likely to die from COVID-19 and 3.2 times more likely to be hospitalized for the virus, says Chandos Culleen, director of federal relations for the National Council of Urban Indian Health. When you see these numbers "it breaks your heart," he says.
White Americans also saw a larger decrease in life expectancy in 2021 than Black and Hispanic Americans. This was the reverse of what happened in 2020 when Hispanic Americans saw a 4 year decline and Black Americans saw a 3 year drop. Life expectancy for white Americans declined by a year in 2021 to 76.4. Black Americans saw a 0.7 year decline to 70.8 years, Hispanic Americans saw a 0.2 year decline to 77.7 years. Asian Americans saw a 0.1 year decline to 83.5 years.
Woolf says the greater drop in life expectancy for white Americans could reflect attitudes in some parts of the country to vaccines and pandemic control measures. The U.S. health care system is fragmented he points out public health is determined by the states, which means there were 50 different pandemic response plans. The states which were more relaxed about COVID restrictions and have lower vaccination rates saw higher excess deaths during the delta and omicron surges than states which had more aggressive vaccination campaigns, masking and other mitigation requirements.
Death rates from COVID-19 in counties that went heavily for Donald Trump saw higher death rates than counties that favored President Biden, according to an NPR analysis.
Injuries, heart disease, chronic liver disease and cirrhosis and suicide also contributed to the life expectancy decline. Increases in unintentional injuries in 2021 were largely driven by drug overdose deaths which increased during the pandemic.
"To have this second year crash basically wiping out the meager gains made during this century is really pretty shocking," says John Haaga, a retired division director of the National Institute on Aging.
The U.S. has been lagging for years in making improvements in things like heart disease the country's number one killer and the life expectancy gap between the U.S. and other countries has been growing for decades, Haaga says.
"A lot of much poorer countries do much better than us in life expectancy," he says. "It's not genetics, it's that we have been falling behind for 50 years."
Contact:Cleo Garcia(210) 722-7944, cleo.garcia@sanantonio.gov
SAN ANTONIO (September 1, 2022) Better access to mental health services will be coming to San Antonio through a $26 million Mental Health Plan. The services and plan are funded from the Citys American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds (SLFRF).
People of all ages have gone through a long period of disruption through the COVID-19 pandemic. Through public input meetings, provider and stakeholder feedback sessions and input from school districts as well as faith leaders, there was a clear consensus that investments in mental health were needed across the community, said City Manager Erik Walsh. We are grateful to the community for their support in developing this plan and to the City Councils Public Safety Committee for their tireless efforts in the development of the plan.
This effort aligns with the SA Forward plan which identified the Citys health priorities and augments mental health initiatives that contribute to healthier and safer communities, said Metro Health Director Claude A. Jacob. We are ready to get to work to provide these critical resources in order to support residents during these uncertain times.The implementation plan will drive the San Antonio Metropolitan Health Districts mental health initiatives over the next two years. The $26 million will be utilized over two years and divides the available funds into four strategic areas:
COVID-19 cases have surged throughout the last two winters but as we come out of summer and temps begin to drop, public health conditions not only feel different, they are different, two local public health experts said.
GBH News spoke with Bill Hanage, associate professor of epidemiology and co-director of the Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics at Harvards T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and Dr. Shira Doron, the hospital epidemiologist at Tufts Medical Center, to understand what the pandemic might look like this year as the seasons change.
This fall and winter look better than the last two...at least, as of now.
We are in a totally different place than we were this time last year, Doron said, And a different planet compared to where we were two years ago this time. And a lot of that is our layers of immunity, layers from vaccination and infection.
Hanage agrees things have improved, but does add that he expects fall and winter to bring a rise in COVID infections. And he said even if coming infections result in fewer hospitalizations, hes concerned that the health care system having been strained over the past two years could still be seriously stressed by any potential surge once again.
Get the newly reformulated booster vaccines, if eligible.
The new vaccines should offer enhanced protection against the most current strains of coronavirus, including the BA.5 variant, which accounts for around 90% of infections right now.
Doron said we dont know just how effective the vaccines are at preventing infection, but she and Hanage are confident that the new boosters, like previous versions, will offer long-lasting protection against developing severe disease if someone is infected.
Public schools should not be a big worry, even if theres little-to-no masking.
When asked about back-to-school, Doron said masks are optional and that's OK. The vast majority of children have already had COVID and therefore have immunity, rendering the virus similar in risk to others for which we never considered masking.
Hanage said that dropping masks in schools will result in more infections, but added that's unlikely to be very consequential in terms of the total burden on health care and total numbers of severe disease.
Doron emphasized that, with masking and other precautions creating obstacles to learning, and few other public settings still requiring masks, mandating masks in schools makes little sense.
The virus can always throw a big curveball.
Perhaps the one thing experts can agree on is the degree of unpredictability with the SARS-COV-2 virus as it continues to mutate and put out new variants.
We may see a massive surge [this winter], Doron said. But we may have so much immunity from Omicron and if there isn't a new variant that emerges and out-competes what we have now, which is mostly BA.5, we could also get lucky and not see an uptick in winter.
Hanage said its an open question whether BA.5 will be dominant in a few months, and he has his eye on some newer variants with mutations that raise concern.
We've got a hell of a lot of immunity from people who were infected as well as vaccinated," he said. "That kind of hybrid immunity, we think, produces more durable protection, and is the kind of thing which is going to make surges more manageable going forward, because it's going to be more of a challenge for the virus to be able to infect a lot of us in short order.
Like we said, thoughwatch out for that curveball.
According to Hanage, absent a change, a fast, icepick-style spike of cases like we saw with Omicron last winter is very unlikely but, you know, I've said it to you before, I never bet against natural selection.
"We don't like to make predictions, said Doron, because there's one thing we know about predictions, and that's that they will be wrong. This virus surprises us at every turn."
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Researchers are almost done with the first of three phases and need more volunteers to be part of the trial.
ST. LOUIS Saint Louis University researchers are currently working on a new COVID-19 vaccine trial.
Researchers say the Gritstone COVID-19 vaccine will work with the vaccines many people already have like Pfizer and Moderna and actually help to create multiple layers of protection against the virus.
Director of the SLU Center for Vaccine Development Dr. Daniel Hoft said the Gritstone COVID-19 vaccine is designed to target several coronavirus proteins in addition to spike proteins, which we've heard a lot about with the current vaccines.
We're still worried about the virus mutating to a point where it would escape all of the current immune responses based upon neutralizing antibodies against the spike protein, Dr. Hoft said.
The current vaccines trigger an immune system response that then produces antibodies.
The Gritstone vaccine focuses on what's called the T-cell and T-cell response.
If you can't make antibodies, you're dependent on your T cells to protect the body, Dr. Hoft said.
He said T-cells actually recognize cells infected with the virus and stop it from spreading.
By having all of these other sequences in there, they have the potential to induce these T-cell responses that are different from what the licensed approved COVID vaccines can induce right now, Dr. Hoft said.
Dr. Hoft said the new vaccine can protect a person from several different COVID-19 variants and they hope this study can help fight other illnesses.
What we're learning about vaccines and the ability to induce a strong T-cell response with these vaccines will be important for helping the other fields around us that are developing vaccines for these other major global health problems, Dr. Hoft said.
They're almost done with the first of three phases and actually need more volunteers to be part of the trial.
They're looking for adults 60 years old and up who have had their first Pfizer, Moderna or Johnson and Johnson vaccines and only one booster shot.
The person also needs to be healthy without any significant allergies.
To volunteer, you can email vaccine@slu.edu or call 866-410-6333.
