New lab data suggest that vaccines and prior infections may not offer enough protection against several new COVID-19 variants cropping up in the U.S. and around the world.
Dr. David Ho, director of Columbia University’s Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center (ADARC), and his team reported the results from a set of studies at an ADARC symposium. They showed how well some of the latest variants—BQ.1, BQ.1.1, XBB, and XBB.1, which were all derived from Omicron—are evading both vaccine-derived and infection-derived immunity.
These new variants all have mutations in the region that binds to cells and infects them, which means that they’re highly transmissible, as prior Omicron variants were. BQ.1 is growing steadily in France, according to the public database of SARS-CoV-2 variants GISAID. By mid-November, European health officials expect the variant to account for 50% of cases in Europe, and to become the dominant strain in that region by early 2023. XBB is growing quickly in Singapore and India.