COVID Variant That Beats Our Immunity Is Finally Here (good news-bivalent vax helps more than plain)

[Celerity]

The XBB subvariant of Omicron appears to be the fastest spreading COVID virus yet, and most of our treatments don’t touch it.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-nightmare-xbb-covid-variant-that-beats-our-immunity-is-finally-here



A new subvariant of the novel-coronavirus called XBB dramatically announced itself earlier this week, in Singapore. New COVID-19 cases more than doubled in a day, from 4,700 on Monday to 11,700 on Tuesday—and XBB is almost certainly why. The same subvariant just appeared in Hong Kong, too.

A highly mutated descendant of the Omicron variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that drove a record wave of infections starting around a year ago, XBB is in many ways the worst form of the virus so far. It’s more contagious than any previous variant or subvariant. It also evades the antibodies from monoclonal therapies, potentially rendering a whole category of drugs ineffective as COVID treatments.

“It is likely the most immune-evasive and poses problems for current monoclonal antibody-based treatments and prevention strategy,” Amesh Adalja, a public-health expert at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, told The Daily Beast.

That’s the bad news. The good news is that the new “bivalent” vaccine boosters from Pfizer and Moderna seem to work just fine against XBB, even though the original vaccines are less effective against XBB. They won’t prevent all infections and reinfections, but they should significantly reduce the chance of severe infection potentially leading to hospitalization or death. “Even with immune-evasive variants, vaccine protection against what matters most—severe disease—remains intact,” Adalja said.

snip

[I_UndergroundPanther]

1. Shit.

The covid shit seems like it will be around forever. So weary of wearing my mask.

[roamer65]

5. It's an endemic virus now.

[Ms. Toad]

25. It is not. It is still a pandemic.

Listen to scientists, not politicians.

[roamer65]

27. It isn't going to go away like the 1918-1920 flu virus.

It’s the next endemic coronavirus for the human species.

I would guess that it is picking up snippets of RNA from existing human coronaviruses as it goes along.

Be interesting to see if a variant gains RNA from MERS.

[Ms. Toad]

28. If it isn't going to go away - and continues to cause

global illness and hardship, and death at a significant rate, it may never reach the endemic stage.

[pandr32]

2. Oh gawd! Good thing we have dogs to keep us busy.

Our social life has changed completely. We are pack animals along with our spoos now.

No more restaurant outings and special events or travel. We clip our own dogs, too--no more visits to the groomers.

Home cooking, gardening, constant home projects, and binge watching the latest streaming options. Thank goodness we have a swimming pool. That's our life now.


I'm not complaining either!

[LAS14]

3. Does anyone have actual stats about hospital and death for those with the new booster?

"The good news is that the new “bivalent” vaccine boosters from Pfizer and Moderna seem to work just fine against XBB, even though the original vaccines are less effective against XBB. They won’t prevent all infections and reinfections, but they should significantly reduce the chance of severe infection potentially leading to hospitalization or death."

[Celerity]

4. an antibody response against the Omicron variant that was 75% greater than the original booster

https://www.moh.gov.sg/news-highlights/details/earlier-rollout-of-bivalent-moderna-spikevax-vaccination

[LAS14]

7. Can anyone fill in the blank for this statement?

if you've had the bivalent booster, and are exposed to COVID, your chances of being hospitalized or dying are xxxxx%.

[Celerity]

13. depends on age, comorbidities, etc

[Pinback]

8. Outstanding.

Glad I’ve got 5 shots. “Collect ’em all!”

[live love laugh]

6. And Big Pharma Win$$$ again.

Seems like they’re the only ones coming out on top of this thing with new variants popping up just in time for everyone to scramble for their new(est) vaccines.

This has to be profitable almost beyond measure.

[Salviati]

11. Humanity wins when we have vaccines that work.

You can take your griping about big pharma and apply it to cases where it's more applicable, like price gouging on insulin, and making barely reformulated drugs that are no more effective in order to keep patents going, but in this case these vaccines are a welcome miracle.

[AllyCat]

12. Yes. This

IMHO, vaccines are needed on all fronts. That is worth the money we pay to big Pharma.

[NullTuples]

14. Humanity wins when poor countries can also afford it b/c it's been shared with the world as Salk did

So long as only (most) wealthy nations vax their people there will remain sizable populations that are able to spawn new, worse variants. It's when it burns through a large group of people largely unimpeded that it mutates fastest.

To protect ourselves we must protect everyone.

[live love laugh]

22. Two things can be true.

[Orrex]

9. I can hardly wait to see the media and corporate world ignore this variant like all the others

[Hermit-The-Prog]

10. Thank anti-vaxxers world-wide for lots of mutations.

[NullTuples]

15. Step 1: maybe the media & researchers could stop calling it, "vaccine hesitancy"

Currently we're up to around 75% vaccine accepting worldwide. The others tend to be anti-vaccine at this point, not just "wary".

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-31441-x.pdf

[SergeStorms]

17. Well, the virus....

just might solve that little problem for us. The U.S. could do with 25% fewer republicans.

[Ms. Toad]

26. And non-makers.

Transmission governs the development of variants. Masks prevent transmission; vaccines are better at limiting the severity of the disease.

[TimeToGo]

16. I found this

Now, I am not an expert in anyway. So . .

https://news.cgtn.com/news/2022-10-15/XBB-variant-How-dangerous-is-the-newest-COVID-19-strain--1e908pSSo4o/index.html

[Celerity]

18. be careful with CGTN, that is state-run Chi-com media

[Pinback]

20. "Open in CGTN APP for better experience."

Sure, why not? What could possibly go wrong?

[Celerity]

24. lol

[TimeToGo]

23. Got it

[electric_blue68]

21. Finally got my bivariant booster today! So glad it will help against the lastest variant.