Then when omicron emerged in February 2022 it was about greater than 7 deaths per million. If you look back to January 2021 we had about 10 deaths per million people in the US. Now with that said the old vaccines still protect you to a degree and we know that based on our data. So it's important that we update our vaccines to train our immune system to recognize some of these newer variants. There's been modifications to that and especially with omicron there's been significant changes to that spike protein to the point where our immune system doesn't recognize it quite as well and that's led to some of the infectivity that we've seen during this latest spike. To be honest with you we needed to update our vaccines given the different variants that have emerged since, and the reason being is that the spike protein which is on the outer surface of the virus is really used to enter our cells and infect our body and infect our organs and lungs, and that has changed. Weinberg: “Yeah it's a good question! You're right this is the first updated vaccine we've seen since the initial one which was back in 2020, so it's about time. One will be targeting the ancestral strain and one will be targeting the omicron variant strain, but are they protective against other strains that we've seen and potentially other strains that will still mutate in the future?”ĭr. Swanda: “Some questions that individuals had were with these different strands of mRNA. Can the bivalent vaccine protect against future COVID strains?ĭr. Let's say you need different keys in order to get into your house right? So what these multiple combined vaccines do is that they essentially tell your immune system okay these are the four keys you need to develop and then you can get into any of these doors and access your house. So you have your garage door, you have your front door, maybe you have a back door, they all have different locks. Weinberg: “Usually one thing to point out, I always like analogies, and one thing I like to think about is let's assume you had four different doors around your house with different locks. Swanda: “That's great that we've been using this technology for a long time and now we're really just trying to take what has worked in the past and use it for a new virus that is mutating: Covid-19 or SARS-CoV-2, and really making sure that we have the best tools available in order to combat some of these infections.”ĭr. And that gives us broad enough immunity to protect ourselves against severe infection and death.”ĭr. A lot of times they're quadrivalent meaning we combine four different types into the vaccine two of them are for influenza A, one type of the flu virus and H1N1 as well as H3N2 are the serotypes, and then we also put in two influenza B forms of the virus as well. And then just a common example is the annual flu vaccine. And pneumococcal bacteria causes pneumonia, it's one of the common causes of bacterial pneumonia in the country so we do that with that. We've done it with the pneumococcal vaccines where we combine multiple serotypes, or variants, into one vaccine. We've done it with the HPV vaccine, which you may have heard of which helps prevent the virus HPV and also cervical cancer. We know that with all these viruses they mutate, they change, and it's important that we adapt our vaccines so we can train our immune system to respond to the different variants that emerge. Swanda! We have, this isn't a new thing to combine multiple forms of a vaccine together. Weinberg: “Yeah that's a great question Dr. Swanda: “Have we seen this type of technology before, and if so for what other vaccines as some examples?”ĭr. Have we seen bivalent technology before?ĭr. Conversation Timing Note: This convo occurred prior to the FDA & CDC granting emergency use authorization for Moderna & Pfizer bivalent covid-19 boosters. Aaron Weinberg, the national director of clinical research at Carbon Health, to tackle the COVID and bivalent vaccine related questions below, and many more in the full-length video discussion found near the bottom of this post. In an effort to make science and healthcare information accessible, Carbon Health has partnered with Rob Swanda, PhD to answer questions about Bivalent vaccines and boosters, from actual people (via Dr. Bivalent mRNA Vaccine Booster Discussion With Rob Swanda, PhD and Dr.
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