bloomberg

Wanted: A Covid Booster That Actually Works

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At this point, it’s clear from all the infections that the vaccine isn’t living up to early hopes. “The initial impression that these vaccines were 95% effective against symptomatic infection and 100% effective against severe disease are no longer accurate,” said Dan Barouch, director of the Center for Virology and Vaccine Research at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and a professor at Harvard Medical School. That’s because our antibodies wane over time and the virus mutated much faster and more radically than scientists had expected.

Barouch thinks a better booster is possible. In a study published last week in Nature, he and colleagues showed that in monkeys, an inhaled vaccine had strong protection against infection, a nasal vaccine intermediate protection, and an injection very little or no protection. Read Full Article…

BGBoston Globe

Future COVID vaccines should be inhaled, suggests new study by Boston scientists

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“When we gave the vaccine directly to the lung, we saw a dramatic improvement in … immunity and protection in the lung itself and in the nose, leading to near complete protection against infection,” said Dr. Dan Barouch, director of the Center for Virology and Vaccine Research at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and the senior author on the paper. Current vaccines raise antibodies in the blood, he said, but have a minimal effect in raising antibody and T-cell responses in the nose and the lungs — “where it really matters if you want to block infection.”

The results, Barouch argues, provide a powerful “proof of concept” for the idea that future boosters should be delivered using a device similar to an asthma inhaler. Read Full Article…

What to Know About the New Covid Variants

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HV.1 is descended from EG.5 and is highly similar to it. There isn’t data yet on how well the new vaccines perform against HV.1, but Dr. Dan Barouch, the head of the Center for Virology and Vaccine Research at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, said he doesn’t anticipate it will be substantially different from their efficacy against EG.5.

Given the variants’ similarity, it’s unclear exactly how HV.1 has overtaken EG.5, but one of the few additional mutations in HV.1 has likely given it an edge over its predecessor. “Whenever a new variant dominates, then by definition it has an advantage,” Dr. Barouch said. “And the advantage is either increased transmissibility or increased immune escape.” Read Full Article

A new Covid variant has become dominant amid slow uptake of the updated shots

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“The logistic complications certainly were not helpful, but I think that the low uptake is more than that. The low uptake reflects that most of the public is no longer concerned about Covid,” said Dr. Dan Barouch, director of the Center for Virology and Vaccine Research at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston.

Barouch said HV.1 could be slighter better than EG.5 at spreading among people or infecting those with prior immunity to Covid — but not enough to cause alarm among scientists. “I would expect that it might be a slight increase in transmissibility or immune escape, which is why it appears to be dominating. Does it change any booster recommendations so far? Probably not,” he said. Read Full Article

ABCABCNEWS

Getting flu and COVID shot together still reasonable amid safety review of potential stroke risk: Experts

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“These data should be considered by patients and their physicians, but there is no reason for alarm. The increased risk of stroke appears to be small and must be balanced against the known benefit of these vaccines in elderly individuals,” said Dr. Dan Barouch, director of the Center for Virology and Vaccine Research at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.

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Older adults still make up most Covid-19 hospitalizations, CDC report says, but concern grows over lack of vaccination

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Highly Mutated COVID Strain Can’t Evade Immunity as Feared

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“If there wasn’t so much hype about BA.2.86, that would actually be the focus of the paper,” Dan Barouch, MD, PhD, told the news outlet, referring to the FL.1.5.1 strain. Barouch is director of one of the labs that conducted the new tests, and he also directs the Center for Virology and Vaccine Research at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Massachusetts.

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New Covid-19 Variant Might Not Be That Bad. More Boosters Are Coming Soon.

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New data released in recent days by a number of research labs, however, have suggested that existing immune defenses might hold up just fine against BA. 2.86. An academic laboratory at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center’s Center for Virology & Vaccine Research, headed by Dr. Dan Barouch, found stronger than expected antibody responses to the strain in tests they ran. The results have yet to be published, but were summarized on social media by one of the scientists who conducted the study.

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New data on BA.2.86: What to know

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“Two independent labs have basically shown that BA.2.86 essentially is not a further immune escape compared with current variants,” Dan Barouch, MD, PhD, director of the center for virology and vaccine research at Boston-based Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, told the news outlet.

The lab tests showed people who had been vaccinated with monovalent shots, had gotten bivalent vaccines or who had recently been infected with an XBB variant were able to neutralize the strain as well as or a bit better than other circulating variants. In both lab studies, people with the highest degree of immunity against BA.2.86 were those who had recently recovered from an XBB infection, suggesting updated shots slated to roll out soon will be effective against it.

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BGBoston Globe

New study led by Boston scientists finds latest COVID-19 variant is less of a threat than feared

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“The combination of the large number of mutations and that it seemed to have emerged in many countries around the world at the same time raised the specter that it could be a variant that causes substantial concern,” said Dr. Dan Barouch, a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and the director of the Center for Virology and Vaccine Research at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. “That’s why many research groups throughout the world have been trying to generate as much info as quickly as they could about it.”

In a preprint paper, a team led by Barouch reported that people’s immune systems were able to fight off BA.2.86 as well as, if not better than, other circulating variants.

The Beth Israel study also found that the immune response is robust against all variants — including BA.2.86 — after exposure to an XBB infection, which would likely include anyone who contracted COVID-19 since December 2022. That’s particularly good news for the upcoming booster, which is set to be released mid-September and was formulated based on XBB.1.5.

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