US regulators approved on Thursday Updated COVID-19 vaccines designed to more closely target recent strains of the virus and hopefully also any variants that cause problems this winter.
With Food and Drug Administration authorization, Pfizer and Moderna are ready to start shipping millions of doses. A third U.S. manufacturer, Novavax, expects its modified version of the vaccine to be available a little later.
“We strongly encourage those who qualify to consider receiving an updated COVID-19 vaccine to provide better protection against currently circulating variants,” said FDA vaccine chief Dr. Peter Marks.
The agency’s decision came just ahead of the distribution of last year’s updated COVID-19 vaccines, as a summer wave of the virus in most of the country. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has already recommended this fall’s vaccine for everyone 6 months and older. Vaccines could be available within days.
While most Americans have some degree of immunity from previous infections or vaccines, or both, that protection is waning. Last fall’s vaccines They targeted a different part of the coronavirus family tree, a strain that is no longer circulating, and CDC data shows that only about 22.5% of adults and 14% of children got it.
Skipping the new vaccine is “a dangerous way to go,” because even if your last infection was mild, the next one could be worse or leave you with lingering COVID symptoms, said Dr. Robert Hopkins Jr. of the National Infectious Diseases Foundation.
This fall’s vaccine recipe is tailored to a newer branch of Omicron’s descendants . The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines target a subtype called KP.2 that was common earlier this year. While other offshoots are now spreading, notably KP.3.1.1, they are closely related enough that the vaccines promise cross-protection. A Pfizer spokesperson said the company submitted data to the FDA showing its updated vaccine “generates a substantially improved response” against multiple virus subtypes compared with last fall’s vaccine.
The big question: When should you get vaccinated? This summer’s COVID-19 wave isn’t over, but the inevitable winter surges tend to be worse. And while COVID-19 vaccines are effective at preventing severe illness, hospitalization and death, protection against mild infection lasts only a few months.
People who are at high risk for contracting the virus should not wait but instead schedule vaccinations once vaccines are available in their area, Hopkins advised.
This includes older adults, people with weakened immune systems or other serious medical problems, nursing home residents, and pregnant women.
Young adults and healthy children “can get vaccinated at any time. I don’t think there’s a real reason to wait,” Hopkins said, though it’s OK to get vaccinated in the fall, when plenty of doses will have arrived in pharmacies and doctors’ offices.
The exception: The CDC says anyone who recently had COVID-19 can wait three months after recovering before getting vaccinated, until immunity to that infection begins to wane.
Hopkins, who sees patients at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, believes it is vital that more young people get vaccinated this year, especially as school begins at a time when coronavirus levels are high across the country.
“COVID doesn’t kill a lot of kids, thank God, but it kills a lot more kids than the flu,” Hopkins said, adding that teachers should also get up to speed quickly on the vaccine.
Health officials say it’s OK to get the COVID-19 vaccine and flu vaccine at the same time, which makes it more convenient to avoid having to make two trips. But while many pharmacies are already promoting flu shots, the best time to get vaccinated is usually in late September and into October, just before the flu starts to spread in colder areas.
