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(AP) - The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday endorsed updated COIVD-19 boosters, opening the way for a fall vaccination campaign that could blunt a winter surge if enough Americans roll up their sleeves.
The new
boosters targeting today’s most common omicron strains should begin arriving in
pharmacies and clinics within days.
The decision
by CDC Director Rochelle Walensky came shortly after the agency’s advisers
voted in favor of the recommendation.
The shots
“can help restore protection that has waned since previous vaccination and were
designed to provide broader protection,” she said in a statement.
The tweaked
shots made by Pfizer and rival Moderna offer Americans a chance to get the most
up-to-date protection at yet another critical period in the pandemic. They’re
combination or “bivalent” shots — half the original vaccine and half protection
against the BA.4 and BA.5 omicron versions now causing nearly all COVID-19
infections.
The CDC’s
advisers struggled with who should get the new boosters and when because only a
similarly tweaked vaccine, not the exact recipe, has been studied in people so
far.
But
ultimately the panel deemed the updated injections the best option considering
the U.S. still is experiencing tens of thousands of COVID-19 cases and about
500 deaths every day — even before an expected new winter wave.
“I think they’re going to be an effective tool
for disease prevention this fall and into the winter,” said CDC adviser Dr.
Matthew Daley of Kaiser Permanente Colorado.
Comparing
the tweak that has been studied in people and the one the U.S. actually will
use, “it is the same scaffolding, part of the same roof, we’re just putting in
some dormers and windows,” said Dr. Sarah Long of Drexel University.
The CDC
recommendation was the last step before shots can begin. Pfizer said it
expected to deliver 3 million doses to vaccination sites around the country by
Tuesday.
The original
COVID-19 vaccines still offer strong protection against severe illness and
death, especially among younger and healthier people who’ve gotten at least one
booster.
But those
vaccines were designed to target the virus strain that circulated in early
2020. Effectiveness drops as new mutants emerge and more time passes since
someone’s last shot. Since April, hospitalization rates in people over age 65
have jumped, the CDC said.
The updated
shots are only for use as a booster, not for someone’s first-ever vaccinations.
The Food and Drug Administration cleared Pfizer’s bivalent option for people 12
and older while Moderna’s is for adults only.
A big
unknown: exactly how much benefit people will get from one of those extra
shots.
The CDC said
more than 1,400 people have been included in several studies of a prior tweak
to the vaccine recipe targeting an earlier omicron strain named BA.1. That
omicron-targeting combo shot proved safe and able to rev up virus-fighting
antibodies, and European regulators on Thursday recommended using that type of
booster.
In the U.S.,
the FDA wanted fall boosters to target the currently circulating omicron
strains. Rather than waiting until possibly November for more human studies to
be finished, the agency accepted mouse testing that showed the newer tweak
sparked a similarly good immune response.
That’s how
flu vaccines are updated every year, the CDC noted.
Dr. Pablo
Sanchez of the Ohio State University was the only CDC adviser to vote against
recommending the shots. He said he believes the bivalent vaccine is safe and
that he likely will get it.
But “I just
feel that this was a bit premature” given the absence of human data on how well
it works, he said.
Several CDC
advisers said that to get the maximum benefit, people will need to wait longer
between their last vaccination and the new booster than the two-month minimum
set by the FDA. Waiting at least three months would be better, they said.
One more
change: The FDA no longer authorizes use of the original-recipe boosters for
anyone 12 or older, considering them outdated. It’s a source of potential
confusion for people who had planned on getting a regular booster this week and
now may have to wait for the new kind to arrive.
It’s not
clear how many people will want an updated shot. Just half of vaccinated
Americans got the first recommended booster dose, and only a third of those 50
and older who were urged to get a second booster did so.
The U.S.
government has purchased 170 million doses from both companies — shots that
will be free — and the CDC said 200 million people could be eligible.
Associated
Press Medical Writer Mike Stobbe contributed to this report.
The Associated
Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes
Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely
responsible for all content.