Issues in COVID-19 research and statistical analyses (Part XVVXVVIV)
November 23, 2022 In an article from November 11, 2022 in Health News from NPR, Rob Stein lays out the likelihood of two new Omicron subvariants, BQ.1 and BQ.11 of SARS-Cov-2 having become dominant in the United States and leading to a winter surge in cases. These two subvariants have overtaken Ba.5 in the recent weeks. They state the recent laboratory studies indicated that newer mutations in the spike protein of this virus appear to make these variants more immune-evasive than Ba.5. The experts are hoping prior immunity people would have from previous infections and maybe vaccination would help protect but a more recent study had indicated that get reinfected can post risks in either the short or long-term and can lead to increased risk of severe COVID, long COVID and death. This leads to the idea that one would gain enhanced protection from the new bivalent boosters put out by both Pfizer and Moderna. However, there has been conflicting evidence of their usefulness. A study by researchers at Columbia University showed that the new boosters are no better than the original vaccine given as fourth dose. Wang et al report in a pre-print article their findings of comparing people with several doses of the mRNA vaccines to those receiving the