This week, the FDA made some adjustments to the U.S.’s COVID-19 vaccine guidance in order to standardize all new mRNA shots to bivalent (or Omicron-specific) vaccines, and to allow adults at higher risk to receive additional boosters. The CDC’s vaccine advisory committee and Director Rochelle Walensky both endorsed these changes.
This week, the White House announced that it’s setting up a $5 billion program, called Project Next Gen, to support next-generation COVID-19 vaccines and treatments. Project Next Gen is a big step toward actually ending the pandemic, not just pretending it’s over. The federal government can support large-scale clinical trials and speed up regulatory approval in a way that no research group or company could. Still, the U.S.’s prior vaccine campaigns don’t inspire confidence that this project will lead to widespread adoption of new shots when they become available.
Sources and updates for the week of February 26 include deaths in U.S. prisons, the future of COVID-19 vaccines, airplane wastewater testing, and more.
Sources and updates for the week of February 5 include modeling persistent COVID-19 risk, global vaccination coverage, COVID-related lawsuits, and more.
On Thursday, the FDA’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (or VRBPAC) met to discuss the future of COVID-19 vaccines. While the committee readily agreed that our current, Omicron-specific shots are working well and should be used more broadly, it had a hard time answering other questions about future vaccine regimens—largely due to a lack of good data.
Sources and updates for the week of December 4 include new CDC grants to support public health infrastructure, breakthrough COVID-19 deaths, monoclonal antibodies, and more.