"Americans will be able to receive an updated COVID-19 vaccine as early as Wednesday after Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) advisers endorsed the shot for everyone older than 6 months.

"The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) voted 13-1. Once CDC Director Mandy Cohen signs off on the recommendation, the shots will be available to Americans who want them.

"The new shots from Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech are a single dose for people 5 years and older.

"Last year’s bivalent booster, which contained a strain of the omicron variant and a strain of the original variant, is no longer recommended and doesn’t offer protection against the currently circulating strains.

"The CDC’s advisory group was divided (13 to 1 in favor), but ultimately endorsed the idea of giving shots to everyone rather than one more targeted risk-based recommendation.

"One doctor argued that a more nuanced recommendation would ensure the people most at risk would get vaccinated because a COVID-weary public might ignore a universal recommendation.

"But others said a universal recommendation would ensure better equity.

"Advisers noted even though the vast majority of the U.S. population has an underlying condition that would qualify under a risk-based recommendation, it would still be limiting and wouldn’t allow access to COVID-19 vaccines for all that wanted them."

The Hill

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“We have more tools than ever to prevent the worst outcomes from COVID-19. Last season, people who received a coronavirus vaccine achieved greater protection against illness and hospitalization than those who did not receive a 2022-2023 vaccine, the CDC said.

“There are robust benefits of vaccination on severe illness, on death, on long covid,” said Beth Bell, a global health professor at the University of Washington. “It’s important for people to have access if they want it,” she said, even though older people like herself are at higher risk of serious illness and death. “The messaging needs to make clear that for older people and those with underlying health conditions, they really need to get a booster.”

"It is unclear how many people will get the new vaccine this fall. A year ago, despite a broad recommendation for an updated booster, only 17 percent of the population got it, according to CDC."

The Washington Post

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Are the New Vaccines “Safe”?

"The big safety issue is, of course, myocarditis [heart inflammation]," William Schaffner, a professor of preventive medicine and infectious disease at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center, told Newsweek. "But myocarditis is first a rare event. Number two, it is overwhelmingly very mild, and the people who experience it recover.

"This is a very, very low risk considering the much higher risk of myocarditis after COVID itself, which often is forgotten. If you're going to get COVID, you're at a much greater risk of getting myocarditis than after the vaccine," he said.

"Since the vaccines were first put into circulation in December 2020, scientists have been able to observe and update the side effects associated with them. "The reality is that we have had these vaccines for almost three years," Ziyad Al-Aly, a senior clinical epidemiologist at Washington University in St. Louis, told Newsweek. "Hundreds of millions of people around the world have received them. They are safe, and their effectiveness exceeded expectations."

"Even mild cases of COVID can result in long-term symptoms after the initial infection has cleared. 'The proponents of universal vaccination will point out that not only do you reduce the risk of severe disease through the vaccine, but you also reduce the risk of long COVID,' Schaffner said.

"One key point here is that the updated booster is not an entirely new vaccine—it is a minor tweak to the already existing ones. "We know exactly what the safety profile of these vaccines is," Schaffner said. "They are no longer new vaccines, and they have been scrutinized for safety, much more than many of the other vaccines that are currently available. This is also not the first time we have updated vaccines in this way. Think about the flu vaccine."

"Vaccine experts agree that if you fall into any of the high-risk groups, a booster shot is a safe and effective way to reduce your risk of severe COVID-19.”

Newsweek

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Avoiding Another ‘Tripledemic’

"This fall, Americans will be asked to roll up their sleeves not just for flu shots, but for new inoculations against Covid-19 and R.S.V. Officials are hoping that widespread adoption of these immunizations will head off another “tripledemic” of respiratory illnesses, like the one seen last winter.

"The newest COVID vaccines will provide much-needed protection as Covid cases continue to rise in some parts of the United States. Although the numbers of Covid hospitalizations and deaths have slowed over the last year, the virus has evolved and mutated into more than two dozen different variants. Most people’s immunity has also waned."

The New York Times