The Biden administration announced last Friday the purchase of “updated” COVID-19 booster shots for use this fall and winter, according to a U.S. Health and Human Services (HHS) press release.
“We must stay vigilant in our fight against COVID-19 and continue to expand Americans’ access to the best vaccines and treatments,” stated HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra. “As we look to the fall and winter, we’re doing just that—ensuring Americans have the tools they need to stay safe and help keep our nation moving forward.”
The modified vaccinations will allegedly function better against the BA.4 and BA.5, two subvariants of the now-dominant Omicron variant.
Recently released studies have seemingly demonstrated that the effectiveness of the vaccines against the new strains drops dramatically after a short period of time.
Research funded by the National Institutes of Health noted that the new strains were “7.5 and 12.4 times less susceptible” to being neutralized by vaccine-created immune response than the original strain of COVID.
Over 90% of all new COVID-19 cases in the United States for the week ending July 23 were BA.4 and BA.5, which are thought to be the virus’s most contagious variants, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
“We look forward to receiving these new variant-specific vaccines and working with state and local healthcare partners to make the vaccines available for free in communities around the country this fall,” said HHS Assistant Secretary Dawn O’Connell.
The federal government is acquiring millions of doses to distribute to the public, and Pfizer and Moderna both ensured that the redesigned boosters would be ready by the fall.
In an agreement, HHS and the U.S. Department of Defense will purchase with taxpayer funds 66 million COVID-19 booster doses from Moderna and 105 million from Pfizer for usage later this year.