Bivalent COVID-19 shots should become the standard form of the vaccine, U.S. advisers said, part of a plan to offer a single booster to the public each year that gives protection against the most recent, dominant strains.
Anyone getting a COVID-19 shot for the first time now receives a vaccine designed in 2020, when the virus looked a lot different than it does today. A panel of 21 advisers to the Food and Drug Administration voted unanimously Thursday to make bivalent vaccines, designed to fight the BA.4 and BA.5 omicron strains, the primary option.
Bivalent shots made by Pfizer Inc. and Moderna Inc. have been shown to fight circulating strains effectively. The FDA doesn’t have to follow the recommendations of the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee, but it usually does.
