New omicron-targeting coronavirus booster shots are poised for rollout after being authorized Wednesday by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)— a move designed to improve protection against severe illness and death during a potential rise in COVID-19 cases this fall and winter.
The boosters, reformulated to take aim at the BA.4 and BA.5 omicron subvariants dominant in the United States, are scheduled to be reviewed by advisers to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Thursday. If the outside experts recommend the shots, and CDC Director Rochelle Walensky agrees, some boosters may be available starting this weekend, with more showing up in pharmacies, doctors offices and clinics after Labor Day.
The emergency authorizations of the boosters — one by Moderna and the other by Pfizer and its German partner, BioNTech — mark the start of a high-stakes effort by the Biden administration to deploy a more muscular defense against a virus that has evolved drastically over the last 2½ years and is still killing an average of 400 to 500 people a day in the United States. The changes are the first since the mRNA vaccines debuted in December 2020.
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