Covid-19 vaccines: News and updates

XBB.1.5, the latest rising version of the virus that causes Covid-19, is following an all-too-familiar pattern: It’s yet another branch off the omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2, and it’s even more transmissible than past versions, gaining traction as people huddle indoors for the winter.

In the United States, XBB.1.5 is rapidly growing, causing almost 28 percent of new Covid-19 cases nationwide as of January 6, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That’s up from just 4 percent of cases at the beginning of December. The new subvariant is driving the majority of reported infections in places like New York and New Jersey, and the rest of the country is poised to follow. It’s also been found in at least 29 countries.

Federal funding for Covid-19 response measures like tests, treatments, and vaccines is drying up just as cases are poised to rise again, raising another barrier for some of the most vulnerable Americans.

Several key factors are different in this go-around, however: The vast majority of people in the US have already been infected or vaccinated, so most have at least some protection from the disease. There are also several effective treatment options, like the antiviral drug Paxlovid, so even those who do get sick have a way to get better.

Another winter, another wave.

With the leaves changing color, temperatures dropping, and people spending more time indoors, health officials are warning of a spike not just in Covid-19 cases but other infections as well.

The wait is over: Updated versions of Covid-19 booster shots have received a green light from the Food and Drug Administration, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now recommends them for all Americans age 12 and older.

This push for new, updated boosters is coming at a good time. Health officials are warning of another likely spike in Covid-19 transmission this fall as people head back indoors once again.

The Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday authorized new Covid-19 vaccines for emergency use for the first time since the original vaccines were approved in December 2020, with the Center for Disease Control approving it on Thursday. The new boosters from Pfizer/BioNTech and from Moderna are targeted at the BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants of the omicron variant. They’re also the engine of a new vaccine booster campaign in the United States as health officials brace for another surge in cases.

“As we head into fall and begin to spend more time indoors, we strongly encourage anyone who is eligible to consider receiving a booster dose with a bivalent COVID-19 vaccine to provide better protection against currently circulating variants,” said FDA Commissioner Robert M. Califf in a statement.

Deaths from Covid-19 are at some of their lowest rates in the United States since the start of the pandemic, but they’re still alarmingly high, according to some health officials.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported this week that, on average, close to 400 people are dying of the disease every day. The total number of cases, hospitalizations, and deaths is trending downward, albeit at an agonizingly slow pace. And as summer gives way to fall, federal health officials are bracing for another spike in cases.

You counted the days until your vaccine appointment, posted a selfie with a bandage on your arm, and diligently came back weeks later for the follow-up shot, already making plans to enjoy hot vax summer. But new Covid-19 variants stepped out of the shadows, and health officials recommended that everyone get a booster dose. You got yours and thought you were done. Then omicron spawned its own subvariants that started infecting people even if they already had Covid-19 and their boosters.

So, do you need another Covid-19 shot?

This week, the White House held a summit on the future of Covid-19 vaccines that brought together scientists and vaccine manufacturers to discuss new vaccine technologies. Officials said that new vaccines are an urgent priority as US Covid-19 cases and hospitalizations are rising once again, vaccination rates are hitting a plateau, Covid-19 funding is running low, and the virus itself is continuing to mutate.

But in recent months, scientists have also learned that the immune cells that provide lasting protection — known as memory B cells and T cells — can keep the worst effects of the most recent versions of the virus at bay, even if they were trained to corral older strains of SARS-CoV-2. Vaccine researchers are expanding their focus from antibodies to these memory immune cells as the new discoveries open a path toward universal coronavirus vaccines.

The pattern has become all too familiar: A new version of the SARS-CoV-2 virus emerges and begins to dominate new Covid-19 cases, until it’s replaced by an even more contagious version of the virus.

This year, subvariants of the omicron variant of the virus have ruled cases in the US. The BA.1 subvariant started the omicron wave. Then in April, BA.2 formed the majority of cases. By May, BA.2.12.1 took over. Now BA.5 is in the lead, triggering a rise in hospitalizations across the country. It may be the most contagious version of the virus to date.

More than 18 million of the youngest children in the United States can finally get Covid-19 vaccines, closing one of the largest remaining gaps in eligibility.

“The United States is now the first country in the world to offer safe and effective Covid-19 vaccines for children as young as 6 months old,” said President Joe Biden this week at a vaccine clinic in Washington, DC.

The Food and Drug Administration on Friday granted emergency authorization to Covid-19 vaccines for infants and toddlers, from Moderna and from Pfizer/BioNTech. The FDA also authorized Moderna’s vaccine for kids between 6 years old and 17 years old. The Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine was previously the only option for children ages 5 and up.

The approval comes after independent advisers to the FDA this week voted unanimously to recommend the vaccines for children as young as 6 months old, covering close to 18 million kids and closing one of the largest remaining immunization gaps in the US population.

After the month of May saw the United States cross the line of more than 1 million reported deaths from Covid-19, the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes the disease is continuing to mutate. That means a growing number of new omicron subvariants are now fueling another rise in infections. The formula for containing the worst effects of the pandemic — namely vaccinations and treatments — still holds up. But progress has been slow, leaving the world vulnerable to more troubling changes to the virus.

The US is inching closer to authorizing Covid-19 vaccines for one of the last unprotected age groups, children under 5 years old. Pfizer and BioNTech reported preliminary data this week that a three-dose sequence of its Covid-19 vaccine yielded 80 percent efficacy in preventing disease in kids between six months and 5 years old. But the Food and Drug Administration will not meet until next month to consider granting emergency approval for these shots.

The World Health Organization (WHO) on Thursday released its estimate of global mortality from the Covid-19 pandemic: 14.9 million deaths, from January 1, 2020, to December 31, 2021.

That tally is the number of “excess deaths” compared to a baseline of expected deaths in a world without Covid-19. This number includes not just the people who died from the virus, but also those who passed away in the ensuing chaos as hospitals filled up and workplaces shut down.

This month, Hong Kong saw its Covid-19 death rate become the highest in the world, topping 37 deaths per million people. The recent outbreak was a brutal shock to the 7.4 million residents of the bustling metropolis, which had until recently kept Covid-19 cases to admirably low levels. Hong Kong was once applauded for its response to Covid-19. Then it became the global epicenter of the pandemic.

Other cities in China like Shenzhen and Shanghai have also seen huge surges in infections, and countries in the Eastern Pacific like South Korea, Vietnam, Singapore, and Australia have seen a surge in cases this month as well. That’s largely due to the rise of BA.2, a highly infectious, hard to identify subvariant of omicron, itself a more transmissible version of the virus that causes Covid-19. Some of these countries also started to relax restrictions on travel and public gatherings just as the new subvariant took root.

Across the world, the omicron phase of the Covid-19 pandemic is now piling up towering case counts in places that have largely managed to keep the disease in check until this point. This troubling rise may signal that another wave of Covid-19 is rising in countries just coming out of their own omicron shadows, including the United States.

Hong Kong now reports the world’s highest death rate from the disease. Hospitals are overwhelmed and the surge is fueling a mental health crisis and leading to suicides, particularly among elderly residents.

Two years ago this month, the World Health Organization (WHO) gave a name to the mysterious new disease caused by a novel coronavirus then about to rip through the world: Covid-19.

One year ago, the rollout of the vaccines created to fight Covid-19 was well on its way.

There’s yet another twist in the pandemic: The omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, now has a “subvariant” that seems to spread more quickly than any other version of the coronavirus to date.

The good news for now is that vaccines still appear to protect against it. But because it’s so transmissible, scientists are racing to figure out what harm it could cause.

Children under 5 years old, who make up one of the largest unvaccinated groups in the US, could soon become eligible to receive Covid-19 shots. The US Food and Drug Administration will consider whether to authorize two small doses of Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines for these children on an emergency basis, the companies announced this week.

Approval could come as soon as this month. But Pfizer and the FDA have a tricky needle to thread, moving quickly while trying to maintain public trust in the process.

Franco, a 28-year-old Brazilian, agonized over getting the Covid-19 vaccine up until the moment the shot went into his arm. “I was skeptical in line,” he said. “Like, playing chicken, you know? Am I going to take it or not? It’s my turn.”

He went through with it; once, then twice, for his Pfizer doses. “I have decided to get vaccinated after having a sit-down with my physician, and we did our checks and balances regarding my health issues,” Franco said. (Vox is withholding his last name to protect his privacy.)

The omicron variant of Covid-19 was discovered less than three months ago, but it rocketed case numbers to record highs. Yet almost as rapidly as they rose, new infections plummeted in countries like the United Kingdom, South Africa, and now the United States.

Omicron caused some of the pandemic’s tallest, sharpest spikes in Covid-19 infections as it overtook previous variants like delta, but several waves triggered by earlier variants followed a remarkably similar pattern. Almost as steeply as cases rose, they fell.

There are several ways to look at the Covid-19 pandemic. One is that a cataclysm we weren’t prepared for — worsened by policy mistakes, misinformation, and global inequity — claimed more than 5 million souls and stalled the lives and livelihoods of billions of people around the world. As the pandemic drags into its third year, it’s hard to see it any other way.

But another story of the pandemic focuses on its unprecedented scientific achievements: In record time, scientists went from discovering a new virus to unpacking its genome to developing multiple effective ways to prevent and treat it, fueling what may be the largest public health effort in history.

The Covid-19 vaccines available today are amazing feats of science. Researchers achieved in less than a year what can sometimes take decades: They targeted a new virus with multiple highly effective vaccines that have reached billions of people. They deployed new approaches like using messenger RNA and adenovirus vectors at large scales for the first time, making some of the biggest leaps in vaccine technology in hundreds of years.

Over the past two years, the United States has seen more than 63 million Covid-19 cases, with some people infected more than once. More than 240 million people in the US have received at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine. More than 60 million have received three.

While Covid-19 infections are never a good thing, these numbers still add up to a glimmer of good news: A large majority of Americans now have some immunity against SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19. That’s a big step toward defanging the disease.

Last September, the World Health Organization and the United Nations laid out a roadmap to end the pandemic. The key goal: having every country in the world achieve at least 40 percent vaccination coverage against Covid-19 by the end of 2021, and 70 percent by mid-2022.

One major player in that effort has been Covax. A global vaccine distribution project co-led by the WHO, Covax was billed by one sponsor as the “world’s best hope of bringing the acute phase of this pandemic to a swift end.” However, it has been plagued with problems since its inception — namely insufficient funds, insufficient supply, and insufficient willingness from rich countries to share vaccines. These struggles have hampered the global fight against Covid-19.

The list of symptoms of Covid-19 has grown longer and stranger throughout the pandemic. With so many people now vaccinated, the warning signs of an infection have become more subtle and vague. That’s becoming especially evident as the omicron variant gallops around the world, squeezing through the nooks and crannies in the wall of immunity that’s been built over the past two years.

An international team of researchers has been tracking signs of infection throughout the pandemic with the Covid Symptom Study using a mobile app where users could self-report their symptoms. Data on the omicron variant is still preliminary, but a group of 171 app users in the United Kingdom, most of whom are vaccinated, recently reported that their top symptoms for omicron were a runny nose, headache, fatigue, sneezing, and a sore throat. These were also the top symptoms for people infected with the delta variant.