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The past 9 months have seen the spread of multiple highly transmissible SARS-CoV-2 variants causing infections in vaccinated and previously infected individuals alike. Three studies provide insights about the protective efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines and therapeutic monoclonal antibody preparations in the face of Omicron subvariants with greater ability to evade neutralizing antibodies.
Cao and colleagues used pseudoviruses containing SARS-CoV-2 variant spike proteins to assess the neutralizing ability of post-COVID-vaccination sera and a panel of therapeutic antibodies against early and later SARS-CoV-2 variants. They found that the BA.2.12.1 and BA.4/BA.5 Omicron subvariants (circulating in the U.S. since early 2022) strongly evaded neutral…