FDA authorizes Pfizer's and Moderna's updated Covid booster shots
The Food and Drug Administration authorized Pfizer and Moderna's updated Covid boosters, which target the BA.5 omicron subvariant.
The Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday authorized updated versions of Pfizer-BioNTech’s and Moderna’s Covid booster shots that target the highly contagious BA.5 omicron subvariant.
The FDA authorized Pfizer’s modified booster for people ages 12 and older; Moderna's shot was authorized for those 18 and up.
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People who’ve received the two-dose primary series of either vaccine and those who’ve received the initial two doses plus one or two boosters are eligible for the updated shots as long as two months have passed since their last shots, the agency said in a statement.
A Pfizer Covid vaccine booster shot is administered to a patient in Freeport, N.Y., on Nov. 30. Steve Pfost / Newsday via Getty Images fileThe FDA’s signoff is not the last step: The decision will now go to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and its advisory committee to issue their own recommendation about how the shots should be used. The agency’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices is scheduled to vote Thursday. The CDC's director, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, could sign off on the doses shortly after Thursday’s meeting, and vaccinations could begin widely after Labor Day.
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