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The Food and Drug Administration said Thursday it had advised drugmakers to update the Covid vaccines to target the KP.2 strain, a descendant of the highly contagious JN.1 variant that began circulating widely in the U.S. this winter. The announcement came just over a week after an FDA advisory panel voted unanimously to recommend that the Covid vaccines for the fall be updated to target the JN.1 variant or one of its descendants. (Lovelace Jr., 6/13)

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) said on Thursday it will provide up to $500 million for mid-stage trials evaluating vaccines administered as a nasal spray or pill to protect against symptomatic COVID-19.The funding is part of Project NextGen, a $5 billion initiative led by the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), to advance a pipeline of new, innovative vaccines and therapeutics providing broader and more durable protection against COVID-19 infection. (6/13)

Moderna said on Thursday its next-generation COVID-19 vaccine candidate showed it was not inferior in efficacy compared to its approved shot in a late-stage study. The experimental vaccine, which met the main trial goal, was being tested in more than 11,000 people aged 12 years and older. The shot showed superior efficacy in adults than the current vaccine sold under the brand Spikevax. (6/13)

An at-home antibody test can gauge users' immunity to COVID-19, alerting to the need for a vaccine booster dose, a University of North Carolina–led research team reports in Science Advances. The investigators evaluated the performance of the low-cost lateral-flow antibody test in 168 healthcare workers with weak COVID-19 vaccine responses. They also measured SARS-CoV-2 neutralizing antibody and T-cell responses among all participants before and after a third vaccine dose. (Van Beusekom, 6/13)

Antibodies isolated from people with long COVID increase pain sensitivity and reduce movement in mice when transferred to the animals, research shows1. The findings suggest that antibodies might drive some symptoms of long COVID — although how that process works is unclear, and the results will need to be replicated in larger studies. “I think this will be a beacon of a paper that we can take forwards to further understand long COVID,” says Resia Pretorius, an immunologist at Stellenbosch University in South Africa. (Wong, 6/13)