US approves updated COVID boosters targeting newest variants

By AP 31 August 2022, 5:12 pm

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Pharmacist Kenni Clark injects a man with a booster dosage of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine at a vaccination clinic on December 29, 2021, in Lawrence, Massachusetts. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

The US authorizes its first update to COVID-19 vaccines, booster doses that target today’s most common omicron strain. Shots could begin within days.

The move by the Food and Drug Administration tweaks the recipe of shots made by Pfizer and rival Moderna that already have saved millions of lives. The hope is that the modified boosters will blunt yet another winter surge.

Until now, COVID-19 vaccines have targeted the original coronavirus strain, even as wildly different mutants emerged. The new US boosters are combination, or “bivalent,” shots. They contain half that original vaccine recipe and half protection against the newest omicron versions, called BA.4 and BA.5, that are considered the most contagious yet.

The combination aims to increase cross-protection against multiple variants.