{"id":66383,"date":"2022-10-26T08:22:01","date_gmt":"2022-10-26T14:22:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uchealth.org\/today\/?p=66383"},"modified":"2024-12-24T08:59:07","modified_gmt":"2024-12-24T15:59:07","slug":"bivalent-booster-aids-population-immunity-reduces-risk-long-covid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uchealth.org\/today\/bivalent-booster-aids-population-immunity-reduces-risk-long-covid\/","title":{"rendered":"The coronavirus isn\u2019t done with us yet. It’s a good time to get your bivalent booster."},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>
\"mom
COVID-19 variants have come and gone in Colorado. The difference between the new boosters and those that came before them is that they\u2019re bivalent, containing mRNA strands of the original coronavirus vaccine as well as those adjusted to match key mutations of omicron variants BA.4 and BA.5. Photo: Getty Images.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

With geopolitical unrest, economic uncertainty, and the midterm elections dominating the headlines, it takes some scrolling to get to the latest on the coronavirus. Just because it\u2019s out of sight doesn\u2019t mean it should be out of mind \u2013 especially when it comes to getting the latest booster shot.<\/p>\n

That shot, like the other mRNA vaccines<\/a> before it, sends genetic instructions wrapped in fatty nanoparticles into your shoulder-muscle cells. Protein factories in those cells read the mRNA to produce proteins that look just like the spike protein of an actual coronavirus. The body recognizes these harmless, free-floating spike proteins as an invader, and the immune system takes note. When an actual coronavirus shows up, it has lost the element of surprise, reducing the chance of infection and sharply cutting the risk of serious illness.<\/p>\n

The difference between these new boosters and those that came before them is that they\u2019re bivalent<\/a>, containing mRNA strands of the original coronavirus vaccine as well as those adjusted to match key mutations of omicron variants BA.4 and BA.5.<\/p>\n

Because the U.S. Food and Drug Administration\u2019s initial emergency authorization for the bivalent boosters only happened on Aug. 31, there\u2019s not yet enough real-world data on the new vaccines\u2019 effectiveness to prove their mettle against those two omicron variants or ones having emerged since (on Oct. 12, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration expanded its approval of the bivalent booster to children as young as 5<\/a>).<\/p>\n

But lab data from mRNA vaccine makers Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech have shown an improved immune response to the newer omicron strains. That insight, combined with clinical results<\/a> from a bivalent booster targeting the original BA.1 omicron strain \u2013 not to mention billions of vaccinations worldwide with the original mRNA vaccines \u2013 satisfied the FDA on the safety-and-effectiveness fronts.<\/p>\n

Bivalent vaccine uptake remains low<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Yet despite perhaps 80% of current COVID-19 cases in Colorado<\/a> and nationwide<\/a> being the BA.5 strain, bivalent vaccine uptake remains low. Just 8.5%<\/a> of those eligible in Colorado have gotten the bivalent booster (by comparison, 70.3% completed the primary series). While Colorado is doing better than the nation as a whole \u2013 just 5.5% of the eligible population has received the bivalent booster \u2013 Colorado\u2019s bivalent-booster numbers should be a lot higher, says Dr. Michelle Barron<\/a>, UCHealth\u2019s senior medical director of infection prevention and control. Among other reasons, she says, is that the holidays are fast approaching.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Dr. Michelle Barron<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cIt takes two weeks for these vaccines to be effective,\u201d Barron said. \u201cThanksgiving is less than a month away, so you have two weeks, basically, to make sure you don\u2019t bring something to Thanksgiving dinner.\u201d<\/p>\n

The combination of vaccination, widespread past infection, and improved treatments have brought hospitalization numbers way down from their peaks in early 2022, she says \u2013 all good news. But the pandemic continues to burn on. While recent nationally reported daily case counts of about 40,000 are just 5% of those of the mid-January peak, underreporting is likely<\/a>, and the coronavirus is still killing close to 400 people a day around the country. That\u2019s more than three times the pace of U.S. traffic accident deaths, and, extrapolated to annual totals, more than five times the mortality of a typical flu season.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven if your opinion is, \u2018If I get sick, so what?\u2019 the potential impact to others is huge,\u201d Barron says.<\/p>\n

Studies show bivalent booster helps against long COVID<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Another reason to get the new bivalent booster is that studies have shown vaccine protection to cut the risk of long COVID. The U.S. government estimates<\/a> that somewhere between 7 million and 23 million people in the United States have or have had long COVID, and that a million people remain out of work because of symptoms including breathlessness, heart palpitations, chest pain, and \u201cbrain fog,\u201d among others. A new study<\/a> of nearly 100,000 Scottish National Health System patients found that, six to 18 months after coronavirus infection, 6% had not recovered at all and 42% reported lingering symptoms. That study reported some vaccine protection from long COVID, and it also found that asymptomatic infections didn\u2019t lead to long covid.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re seeing, often, young, healthy people with these chronic conditions we don\u2019t fully know how to treat, manage, or even diagnose,\u201d Barron said. \u201cIf the vaccine can mitigate long covid, it\u2019s one more reason to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bivalent booster aids in continued population immunity<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Add to that the inevitability of viral mutations. The most concerning among the current crop of emerging variants is all are children of omicron (unlike the case of omicron itself, which came from a different lineage entirely than the delta variant it abruptly supplanted in late 2021). A particular worry<\/a> is one called BF.7 (a BA.5 subvariant), which in lab studies has shown a worrying knack for immune evasion. It now makes up about 5% of cases nationally, and its mutations lead Barron to suspect that \u201cit\u2019s like the love child of delta and omicron.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"
Dr. Jonathan Samet<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It remains to be seen whether, as was the case with delta, BF.7 causes more severe disease than omicron. If so, and if it were to become the dominant strain (it could stall, or other emerging strains could overtake it \u2013 one called BQ.1 is expanding quickly<\/a> in Europe), we could see a nasty winter spike and hospitalizations on the order of those seen early this year, according to a new Colorado Covid-19 Modeling Group report<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s not a surprise \u2013 a \u2018bad\u2019 variant will send the curve back up. Immune escape and virulence are key,\u201d wrote Dr. Jonathan Samet<\/a>, dean of the Colorado School of Public Health and leader of the Colorado COVID-19 Modeling Group, in an email.<\/p>\n

Samet says the coronavirus pandemic\u2019s path will depend on how the virus mutates and how those mutations spread. If BA.5 remains dominant, widespread immunity from prior infection and vaccination could render the coronavirus an endemic disease manageable like the annual flu. But, Samet says, \u201cExperience to date suggests we will experience the consequences of the next variant(s) \u2013 but it\u2019s not clear which one.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are in a good place at the moment, with a high rate of population immunity,\u201d he said. \u201cWe need to maintain it by achieving the highest possible level of boosters.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With geopolitical unrest, economic uncertainty, and the midterm elections dominating the headlines, it takes some scrolling to get to the latest on the coronavirus. Just because it\u2019s out of sight doesn\u2019t mean it should be out of mind \u2013 especially when it comes to getting the latest booster shot. That shot, like the other mRNA […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":66478,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[4860,9069,162,9187],"class_list":["post-66383","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-healthy-living","tag-covid-19","tag-covid-19-vaccine","tag-infectious-diseases","tag-readysetco"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nBivalent booster aids population immunity, reduces risk of long COVID- UCHealth Today<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Bivalent boosters contain mRNA strands of the original coronavirus vaccine and those adjusted to match key mutations of omicron variants.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.uchealth.org\/today\/bivalent-booster-aids-population-immunity-reduces-risk-long-covid\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The coronavirus isn\u2019t done with us yet. 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It’s a good time to get your bivalent booster."}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.uchealth.org\/today\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.uchealth.org\/today\/","name":"UCHealth Today","description":"UCHealth Today","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.uchealth.org\/today\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.uchealth.org\/today\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/www.uchealth.org\/today\/#organization","name":"UCHealth","url":"https:\/\/www.uchealth.org\/today\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.uchealth.org\/today\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/uchealth-wp-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2020\/04\/24135149\/UCHealth-square-logo-1000x1000-1.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/uchealth-wp-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2020\/04\/24135149\/UCHealth-square-logo-1000x1000-1.jpg","width":1000,"height":1000,"caption":"UCHealth"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.uchealth.org\/today\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/uchealthorg\/","https:\/\/x.com\/uchealth","https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/uchealth\/","https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/school\/14839\/","https:\/\/www.pinterest.com\/uchealthorg\/","https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/channel\/UC41SJI79yjZIe96OajzN22g"]},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.uchealth.org\/today\/#\/schema\/person\/da7733ff5562e48e55c027d111ee5911","name":"Todd Neff, for UCHealth","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/ba17a8f1358d39c104ff6cb59da7fe21b9bfc792948447c3ac964e93b37aa49f?s=96&d=mm&r=g","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/ba17a8f1358d39c104ff6cb59da7fe21b9bfc792948447c3ac964e93b37aa49f?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/ba17a8f1358d39c104ff6cb59da7fe21b9bfc792948447c3ac964e93b37aa49f?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Todd Neff, for UCHealth"},"description":"Todd Neff has written hundreds of stories for University of Colorado Hospital and UCHealth. He covered science and the environment for the Daily Camera in Boulder, Colorado, and has taught narrative nonfiction at the University of Colorado, where he was a Ted Scripps Fellowship recipient in Environmental Journalism. 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