FDA signs off on updated Covid-19 vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech

As a summer wave of Covid-19 continues to hit the United States, the US Food and Drug Administration on Thursday signed off on updated Covid-19 vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech.

As a summer wave of Covid-19 continues to hit the United States, the US Food and Drug Administration on Thursday signed off on updated Covid-19 vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech. Moderna and Pfizer said updated mRNA shots will be available in pharmacies and clinics in the days ahead. “Vaccination continues to be the cornerstone of COVID-19 prevention,” Dr. Peter Marks, director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, said in a statement. “These updated vaccines meet the agency’s rigorous, scientific standards for safety, effectiveness, and manufacturing quality. Given waning immunity of the population from previous exposure to the virus and from prior vaccination, we strongly encourage those who are eligible to consider receiving an updated COVID-19 vaccine to provide better protection against currently circulating variants.” Levels of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which causes Covid-19, measured in wastewater are at “very high” levels nationally, according to CDC data, sparking the highest summer peak in the US since July 2022. Monitoring of viral levels in wastewater can give a picture of how widespread the virus is as testing and other forms of monitoring have fallen off. Measures of severe disease, including rates of hospitalization and death, have been rising, according to the CDC, but they’re nowhere near levels seen in previous years. The prevalent strain in the US now is KP.3.1.1, according to CDC data, estimated to account for 37% of cases over the past two weeks. That’s triple its level a month ago.