What to know about the new COVID boosters

关于新冠病毒助推器需要了解什么

Life Kit

2023-09-14

16 分钟
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Updated versions of the mRNA vaccines roll out this week. Experts say they offer good protection against current COVID variants. Who should get them, and when's the best time to roll up your sleeve? Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy
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  • You're listening to lifekit from NPR.

  • Hey, everybody, it's Marielle Seguera.

  • There is a new Covid booster dropping soon.

  • The Food and Drug Administration approved the shot this week, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention weighed in on who should get it.

  • Now, we know a lot of people don't think about COVID all that much anymore, at least not in the all consuming way we used to.

  • But it's good to have the information and to be up to date on our vaccines.

  • So this episode of Life Kit is all about the new booster.

  • It's a conversation between Regina Barber, host of the NPR science podcast Shortwave, and the NPR science correspondents Maria Godoy and Rob Stein.

  • Regina is going to talk with Rob and Maria about who should get the vaccine, how to time the shot, and how much it'll cost.

  • Okay, Rob, we know coronaviruses mutate a lot, and since this booster was developed, new Omicron subvariants have emerged.

  • How good is this new booster in protecting against the current field of variants?

  • You know, the new boosters are targeted at a much more recent version of Omicron than the previous shots.

  • It's known as XBB 15.

  • So these new shots should be a much closer match to currently circulating variants than the earlier vaccines.

  • Right.

  • So when I talked to Andrew Pekos, he's a virologist and immunologist at Johns Hopkins, he said, you know, the updated shots should be pretty protective.

  • And when you get vaccinated, the vast majority of the antibodies your body generates should cross react to the variants that are circulating right now.

  • And that's exactly what laboratory studies have found, that the new shots generate neutralizing antibodies that look like they would do a good job of helping fight off the variants that are circulating now.

  • And are these new boosters protective against the latest subvariant that experts are watching really closely?

  • That's BA 286.