While cases increase, COVID-19-related deaths have not seen a corresponding rise, most likely because of natural and vaccine-induced immunity along with the use of effective therapeutics. Current vaccines induce high protection against severe COVID-19. In their preprint, Baum, U., et al. estimated vaccine effectiveness against severe COVID-19 among almost 900,000 elderly individuals. The authors reported an over 95% vaccine efficacy against hospitalization after 3 doses of the Pfizer & BioNTech mRNA vaccine for at least 60 days after the final dose, and efficacy remained high during Omicron’s emergence. And vaccines appear effective against both the BA.1 and BA.2 Omicron lineages. Chemaitelly, H., et al. found a third mRNA vaccine dose induced high protection against COVID-19 hospitalization and death from BA.1 and BA.2 infections in a preprint, and Yu, J., et al. demonstrated similar neutralizing antibody titers against both BA.1 and BA.2 in The New England Journal of Medicine. Current vaccines and public health measures can reduce infections and deaths from Omicron.
Resources to Probe Viral Biology
This week, COVID-19 Research Registry Virtual Journal Club presenter Dr. Melanie Ott highlighted a SARS-CoV-2 virus-like particles (VLP) tool that enables rapid analysis of variant mutations and virus neutralization. Research tools and resources such as the VLP system offer the scientific community an easy and accessible approach to screen novel mutations and their impacts on viral fitness and immune escape. Thank you to Ott for her excellent presentation and to panelists Drs. Ilhem Messaoudi and Thomas Gallagher for sharing their ideas and insights as well as Drs. Abdullah Syed and Taha Taha for joining to share more details about the VLP system. For those who missed the March session, a recording will be available in about a week, and all the past sessions are available at the registry virtual journal club archive.
How is the genome of SARS-CoV-2 evolving? What mechanism does the coronavirus use to target human cells? How does the immune system react to SARS-CoV-2?
Will serology provide the ultimate answer? Does the existence of the antibody equal protection due to antibody neutralization? How often should patients be tested?
What are the different kinds of vaccines? Do coronaviruses evolve to escape vaccines? What have we learned from work with Ebola virus and SARS vaccines development?
How does a pandemic start? How long will this pandemic last: can data models give us some hints? COVID-19 affects people differently depending on their age, how does this affect transmission? How does social distancing influence transmission rates?
Scientifically speaking, what is a coronavirus? What are the similarities and differences in structure and activities of SARS, MERS and SARS-CoV-2? What is the PK/PD of Remdesivir?
