The future of COVID-19 vaccines needs more data

On Thursday, the FDA’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (or VRBPAC) met to discuss the future of COVID-19 vaccines. While the committee readily agreed that our current, Omicron-specific shots are working well and should be used more broadly, it had a hard time answering other questions about future vaccine regimens—largely due to a lack of good data.

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National numbers, October 16

While official case numbers remain low compared to past fall seasons—both national cases and hospital admissions dropped again this week—signals of a coming fall surge are accumulating from wastewater and local data. According to Biobot’s dashboard, the coronavirus continues to spread in the Northeast at higher levels than the rest of the country with a new uptick this week.

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Another COVID-19 endgame take

Trevor Bedford, computational virologist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center—and widely regarded expert on coronavirus variants—wrote a useful Twitter thread this week. In the thread, Bedford provides his take on the “COVID-19 endgame.” In other words, what will happen once the virus reaches endemic levels?

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