New COVID-19 vaccines are now available: 10 key facts and statistics about these shots

We now have two new COVID-19 vaccines available for this year’s respiratory virus season, one from Pfizer and one from Moderna, which are expected to perform well against current variants. The FDA approved both vaccines this week, and the CDC recommended them for almost all Americans.  A third option, from Novavax, may become available in the coming weeks as well.

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Updated COVID-19 vaccines are coming this fall

This past Thursday, the FDA’s advisory committee on vaccines and similar biological products met to discuss COVID-19 boosters for this fall. They voted in favor of updating the vaccines based on Omicron XBB, a variant lineage that has dominated both in the U.S. and globally this year.

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FDA and CDC simplify COVID-19 vaccine guidance

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.

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Next-generation COVID-19 vaccines: what you should know

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.

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