Long Island experts hopeful over Moderna's new COVID-19 booster

Moderna said Monday that in people previously infected with COVID-19, its new booster shot is producing five times the antibodies against the omicron BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants compared to the original vaccine. Infectious disease experts on Long Island called it an encouraging development, and one more reason people should get a booster shot — even though vaccination rates are lagging with the latest versions

“You might get sick, but there’s no way it’s going to really progress and make you really sick” if you get the booster shot, said Dr. Alan M. Bulbin, director of infectious disease at Catholic Health St. Francis Hospital & Heart Center in Flower Hill, calling results of Moderna’s study “a great thing.”

In people who had never been infected with COVID-19, the booster triggered more than six times the amount of antibodies against those omicron subvariants, according to the drugmaker.

The new shot targets both the original COVID-19 virus and the omicron variants that have emerged over the last year.

Bulbin stressed that the shots don’t prevent people from getting infected — but vastly reduce the chances of becoming severely ill, hospitalized or dying.

“You’re not going to come to the ER, and you’re not going to die from the virus” if you are boosted, he said.

Dr. Bruce Polsky, an infectious disease specialist at NYU Langone-Long Island in Mineola, said he hoped the results would encourage more people to get the booster.

“There’s a firm rationale now for people to run out and get this thing before we get too deep into the winter,” he said. “And it’s safe.”

He noted that Moderna, along with Pfizer, are tweaking their COVID-19 vaccines to target new variants the same way shots against the flu are adjusted each season.

“It’s a good strategy,” he said.

In clinical trial data released Monday, Moderna said it examined 500 people between the ages of 19 and 89 who had received the new booster. It was the first data on humans the company has released regarding the booster.

Moderna said its study showed the booster is effective at fighting not only the omicron variant, but a new subvariant emerging in the United States — the BQ. 1.1.

"We are pleased to see that both of our bivalent booster vaccine candidates offer superior protection against Omicron BA.4/BA.5 variants compared to our original booster, which is encouraging given COVID-19 remains a leading cause of hospitalization and death globally,” Stéphane Bancel, Moderna's CEO, said in a statement.

Pfizer has released similar studies showing that the booster it produced along with partner, BioNTech, is also more effective at fighting the omicron variants than the original vaccine. The Food and Drug Administration asked the companies during the summer to develop boosters targeting the BA. 5 omicron variant.

While the new study is a positive development, said Dr. Aaron Glatt, chair of the department of medicine at Mount Sinai South Nassau in Oceanside, it is not the final word on the new booster. More time is needed to confirm it does in fact prevent severe illness and death better than the original vaccines, Glatt said.

“It’s good news but too soon to celebrate,” he said. It’s “not the end of the game. This is the first quarter.”

Glatt added: “The old vaccines were excellent” and “have saved millions of lives … we’re not seeing people dying who would have died in the past” before the vaccines were available.

But “you need to see this out over months” before definitively saying the booster is functioning better than the original shot, he said.