Bivalent COVID-19 vaccine antibody responses to Omicron variants suggest that responses to divergent variants would be improved with matched vaccine antigens (preprint)

We compared neutralizing antibody responses to BA.4/5, BQ.1.1, XBB, and XBB.1.5 Omicron SARS-CoV-2 variants after a bivalent or ancestral COVID-19 mRNA booster vaccine or post-vaccination infection. We found that the bivalent booster elicited moderately high antibody titers against BA.4/5 that were approximately two-fold higher against all Omicron variants than titers elicited by the monovalent booster. The bivalent booster elicited low but similar titers against both XBB and XBB.1.5 variants. These findings inform risk assessments for future COVID-19 vaccine recommendations and suggest that updated COVID-19 vaccines containing matched vaccine antigens to circulating divergent variants may be needed.