New Haven, Conn. (WTNH) — The newest COVID booster, which has the updated bivalent formula, has not received the acceptance the original COVID vaccines received, but it continues to show promising results.

The latest data shows the booster reduces the number of symptomatic omicron infections, even from the XBB 1.5 variant, by half.

“Which means that, you know, people aren’t getting as sick. Now, the CDC has said that they are collecting data on hospitalizations and deaths and the reduction in those numbers due to the updated boosters,” said Yale Medicine Physician F. Perry Wilson.

On Monday, the World Health Organization said that COVID-19 remains a public health emergency but the pandemic is at what they call a transition point.

The agency is not ending its emergency declaration but said the world is in the best position it has been in due to diagnostics, vaccines and treatments.

“But they seem to be implying that that will come in the future. And to start planning for dealing with COVID as one of the other respiratory viruses that just exist in the world, as opposed to trying to eradicate it entirely early,” Dr. Wilson said.

Dr. Wilson also discussed recent findings from a study on children and screen time.

When the study began nine years ago the children were under 12 months old and already had two hours of screen time per day. The children were recently examined and results of the study showed that screentime at a young age was associated with worse executive function.

“They did find, as you might expect, that more screen time at that young age was associated with worse executive function and those are the skills that allow kids to essentially modulate their behavior, to achieve their goals. And so a little bit more information that, you know, spending too much time on a screen for very young children might have long-term effects,” Dr. Wilson said.