Recent research Evaluation of bivalent boosters in people aged 12 years and older showed that they work equally well in individuals of all ages. The researchers found that 3 months after receiving monovalent boosters (May-August 2022) and 3 months after receiving bivalent boosters (September-December 2022) compared the lives of people between They found that monovalent boosters were 25% effective in preventing hospitalization or death, whereas bivalent boosters he was 62% effective.
The boosters worked for everyone, but experts say older people are much more likely to be hospitalized with COVID-19, so they’ll benefit more. Danyu Lin, his professor of biostatistics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, who led the study, said:
a divalent booster protects against infection People between the ages of 18 and 49 were also promising. Compared to those who received her 2 doses of the original vaccine to her 4 doses, those who received the bivalent booster were about 50% lower.
However, like the original vaccine, the bivalent booster slightly increases risk myocarditis, myocardial inflammation, people aged 18 to 35. As a result, some experts are hesitant to recommend additional booster doses for this group.
“If you’re young, 35 or 40, you’re otherwise healthy, you’ve been vaccinated and boosted, and you’ve probably been infected once or twice in the past. “I think it’s pretty well protected,” said Dr. David Ho, a professor of medicine at Columbia University who led one of the antibody studies. We don’t force people like us to get annual vaccinations.”
What will boosters look like in the coming months or years?
The FDA says that for most Americans, the booster is given annually Like the flu vaccine in the fall, high-risk individuals can be vaccinated multiple times a year.
Dr. Lin has an unpublished study comparing results with the number of booster doses people receive each year. His data show that on average people who get less than 1 of his boosters a year have higher hospitalization and mortality rates than those who get more than 1 of his boosters. The difference between booster doses he once and he twice a year is much smaller. He said this suggests that a yearly booster is enough for most people. However, for seniors, even the modest gains from multiple boosters per year are probably worth it.
