COVID-19 Boosters This Fall to Include Omicron Antigen, but Questions Remain About Its Value

Medical News & Perspectives

Rita Rubin

Abstract

No abstract available

Introduction

Probably many people who watched or participated in the June 28 virtual US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) advisory committee meeting about updating COVID-19 vaccines could agree on 1 point, made by the agency’s Peter Marks, MD, PhD:

“It is science at its hardest.”

The FDA convened its Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC) to discuss whether to add an Omicron component to boosters for the fall. In order to have enough doses by early October, “we will need to very rapidly move to let companies know what that selection will be,” Marks reminded the panelists. (How many doses will be enough isn’t clear—as of June 30, only 51.1% of fully vaccinated US adults aged 18 years or older had received 1 booster shot, while only 27% of fully vaccinated adults aged 50 years or older, for whom a second booster is recommended, had received 2, according to government data.)

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