“Two independent labs have basically shown that BA.2.86 essentially is not a further immune escape compared with current variants,” Dr. Dan Barouch, director of the Center for Virology and Vaccine Research at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and leader of one of the labs, told CNN.
“What I think we’re seeing is the virus continuing to evolve, and then leading to waves of infection, hopefully mostly mild in severity,” said Dr. Dan Barouch, head of the Center for Virology and Vaccine Research at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston.
Experiments testing versions of the virus in two U.S. independent laboratories suggest that is unlikely, said Dr. Dan Barouch, director of the Center for Virology and Vaccine Research at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, whose lab led one of the studies.
Dr. Dan Barouch, director of the Center for Virology and Vaccine Research at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, said recent lab studies have shown people who had been infected by an XBB omicron subvariant within the last six months generated antibodies against EG.5, BA.2.86 and other omicron subvariants, suggesting the updated booster will also provide protection against these strains.
As for Covid-19, “at the present time, we are seeing an uptick in infection rates as well as hospitalizations, however, the absolute rates of severe disease, hospitalizations, and death are still very low compared with where we were a year ago and two years ago,” said Dr. Dan Barouch, director of the Center for Virology and Vaccine Research at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, who was not involved in developing either the Moderna or Pfizer vaccines but previously helped study the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.
Dan Barouch is being honored by the King Faisal Foundation, based in Saudi Arabia. Read Article
For scientists, these data are evidence of immunological imprinting, or antigenic sin — when a person’s first exposure to the virus biases their later responses. Future vaccine strategy will have to contend with this issue, said Dan H. Barouch, a vaccine expert at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center who led the second study and helped develop the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. Read Article
A new study suggests that the subvariant BA.4.6 can cause reinfections. A slew of other subvariants on the horizon may do the same. Read Article
Omicron subvariants BA.4 and BA.5 appear to escape antibody responses among both people who had previous Covid-19 infection and those who have been fully vaccinated and boosted, according to new data from researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, of Harvard Medical School. Read Article
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