David H Canaday, Oladayo A Oyebanji, Elizabeth M White, Jürgen Bosch, Clare Nugent, Igor Vishnepolskiy, Yasin Abul, Elise M Didion, Alexandra Paxitzis, Nicholas Sundheimer, Vaishnavi Ragavapuram, Dennis Wilk, Debbie Keresztesy, Yi Cao, Kerri St Denis, Kevin W McConeghy, L Clifford McDonald, John A Jernigan, Eleftherios Mylonakis, Brigid M Wilson, Christopher L King, Alejandro B Balazs, Stefan Gravenstein
Introduction of monovalent COVID-19 mRNA vaccines in late 2020 helped to mitigate disproportionate COVID-19-related morbidity and mortality in U.S. nursing homes (1); however, reduced effectiveness of monovalent vaccines during the period of Omicron variant predominance led to recommendations for booster doses with bivalent COVID-19 mRNA vaccines that include an Omicron BA.4/BA.5 spike protein component to broaden immune response and improve vaccine effectiveness against circulating Omicron variants (2). Recent studies suggest that bivalent booster doses provide substantial additional protection against SARS-CoV-2 infection and severe COVID-19-associated disease among immunocompetent adults who previously received only monovalent vaccines (3)...
January 27, 2023: MMWR. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report