White House still expects new COVID boosters will offer better protection, although two new studies raise doubts

White House still expects new COVID boosters will offer better protection, but two new studies cast doubt Recent small studies, not yet peer-reviewed, suggested the new boosters may not be significantly better than the original vaccine formula. CBS News

The White House's top COVID-19 official says he still expects the protection against the Omicron BA.5 variant offered by the new COVID vaccine boosters will be better than their predecessors, despite two studies that appear to question that assumption. In an interview with CBS News, Dr. Ashish Jha also said he does not think another imminent change to the COVID boosters will be needed.

Jha's comments come after researchers found, in two smaller groups of volunteers, data suggesting that the updated boosters provide only similar but not superior antibody boosts against BA.5, compared to the original vaccine formula.

"I do think that the protection against infection is going to be better than if you were getting the original prototype booster," Jha told CBS News.  ...He predicted that the "well-controlled trials" with "larger samples" now underway from vaccine makers could yield more favorable results about the boosters' performance. 

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