New COVID boosters likely to protect against worrisome variant : Shots

Lab data suggests the new COVID-19 booster shots should protect against a variant that concerns scientists. The boosters should be widely available this fall at pharmacies, like the one seen in the Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn borough in New York City.

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Scientists have produced the first data indicating that a variant that has raised alarm is unlikely to pose a big new COVID-19 threat.

Four preliminary laboratory studies released over the weekend found that antibodies from previous infections and vaccinations appear capable of neutralizing the variant, known as BA.2.86.

“It is reassuring,” says Dr. Dan Barouch, who conducted one of the studies at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston.

When it was first spotted, BA.2.86 set off alarm bells. It contains more than 30 mutations on the spike protein the virus uses to infect cells. That’s a level of mutation on par with the original Omicron variant, which caused a massive surge.

The concern was BA.2.86, while still rare, could sneak around the immunity people had built up and cause another huge, deadly wave.

“When something heavily mutated comes out of nowhere … there’s this risk that it’s dramatically different and that it changes the nature of the pandemic,” says Benjamin Murrell, who conducted one of the other studies at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden.

But Murrell and Barouch’s experiments, along with similar studies conducted by Yunlong Richard Cao at Peking University in China and by Dr. David Ho at Columbia University in New York, indicate BA.2.86, is unlikely to be another game-changer.

“For BA.2.86 the initial antibody neutralization results suggest that history is not repeating…