Researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released data Friday indicating that the newer two-strain Covid booster shots provide substantial protection against illness and hospitalization, even in the previously vaccinated.
The Food and Drug Administration said Friday that it will convene an advisory hearing next month to discuss what vaccines should look like going forward, including whether people who have never received any Covid vaccines should receive the bivalent as their first.
Earlier this year, the FDA and the CDC authorized and recommended new versions of the booster shots with far less evidence from clinical studies that they prevented severe disease, in a bet that matching the vaccines to currently circulating variant strains of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes Covid would provide better protection. The new results bolster the case that these new shots, called bivalent boosters because they include both the original strain of the virus and a newer Omicron strain, are effective at preventing disease.
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