tldr;
Story 1:Bivalent data is good enough that FDA advisors say it should replace the OG vaccine.

Story 2:Evusheld doesn't work against XBB1.5, so people with weak immune system who took it prophylactical-ly lose another tool.

Story 3:A proposal to make the vaccine a once-a-year thing. (I think it's a bad idea because this virus is changing faster than once a year.)

Story 4:It's old but I don't think I posted it. If you are pregnant and get COVID you have much higher risks of being hospitalized.

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Story 1:
FDA advisors recommend replacing original Covid vaccine with bivalent omicron shots for all doses
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/01/26/fda-advisors-recommend-using-covid-omicron-shots-for-all-doses.html

*The 21 members of the FDA committee unanimously backed the proposal, agreeing that it would simplify the U.S. Covid vaccination program.

*Currently, Pfizer’s and Moderna’s omicron shots are only authorized as a booster, while the first two doses are still their old shots based on the original Covid strain.

The committee’s 21 members unanimously backed the proposal, agreeing that it would simplify the U.S. Covid vaccination program.

“This is absolutely the right thing to do for the program. It will make things simpler,” said Dr. Melinda Wharton, a senior official at the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, a division of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The proposed change would only affect people who have not yet received their two-dose primary vaccination series. No timeline was provided on when this switch might occur if the FDA accepts the panel’s nonbinding recommendation.

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Story 2:
U.S. FDA pulls authorization for AstraZeneca's COVID-19 treatment Evusheld
https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/us-fda-withdraws-authorization-astrazenecas-evusheld-2023-01-26/

Jan 26 (Reuters) - The U.S. health regulator has withdrawn emergency-use authorization for AstraZeneca's (AZN.L) COVID-19 antibody cocktail Evusheld as the treatment is not expected to neutralize the currently dominant XBB.1.5 subvariant of Omicron.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had limited Evusheld's use earlier this month for the same reason and the agency's Thursday announcement sent U.S. shares of London-based AstraZeneca down 1.31% to $65.75.

Omicron subvariant XBB.1.5 has been spreading rapidly in the country since December and it made up nearly half of all U.S. COVID-19 cases last week, according to government data.

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Story 3:
Should COVID vaccines be yearly? Proposal divides US scientists
Some say the US Food and Drug Administration’s proposal to update COVID-19 vaccines each year, similar to influenza jabs, could boost uptake.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-00234-7


Scientists are split about a US Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) proposal to update COVID-19 vaccines once a year, similar to the agency’s approach for annually updating influenza vaccines. At a meeting of the FDA’s vaccine advisory panel on 26 January, some researchers argued that the proposal to offer an updated vaccine every US autumn would help simplify the country’s complex COVID immunization schedule and might boost uptake as a result.

But other scientists were less convinced about the timeline — or whether healthy adults should be urged to receive an annual COVID-19 jab at all. Angela Shen, a vaccine specialist at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia in Pennsylvania, says the proposal, released on Monday, is “conceptually not a bad idea”. But she questions whether the data support updating the vaccine composition once a year because SARS-CoV-2 spawns new variants at a much faster rate than influenza. “Just scratching out ‘flu’ and replacing it with ‘COVID’ on all the documents might not work, because COVID is not the flu,” says Shen, who is a member of a US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advisory panel on immunization practices.


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Story 4:
Large new review underscores the risks of Covid-19 during pregnancy
https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/16/health/covid-19-pregnancy-risks-review/index.html

Pregnant women and their developing babies are at higher risk for severe outcomes if they get Covid-19, and now a large, international review is helping to underscore how devastating those risks can be.

The study draws on data from 12 studies from as many countries—including the United States. Altogether, the studies included more than 13,000 pregnant women—about 2,000 who had a confirmed or probable case of Covid-19. The health outcomes for these women and their babies were compared to about 11,000 pregnancies where the mother tested negative for Covid-19 or antibodies to it at the time of their deliveries.

Across the studies about 3% of pregnant women with Covid-19 needed intensive care, and about 4% needed any kind of critical care, but this was far higher than the numbers of pregnant women who needed that kind of care outside of a Covid-19 infection.

Compared to pregnant individuals who weren’t infected, those who got Covid-19 were nearly 4 times more likely to be admitted to an intensive care unit. They were 15 times more likely to be ventilated and were 7 times more likely to die. They also had higher risks for pre-eclampisa, blood clots, and problems caused by high blood pressure. Babies born to moms who had Covid-19 were at higher risk for preterm birth and low birth weights.

Previous studies have suggested that Covid-19 may increase the risk of stillbirth, but this study didn’t find that same link.