The FDA approved updated COVID-19 vaccines on Monday in a bid to lower the number of hospitalizations and deaths associated with the virus.
COVID-19 cases have been rising across the United States this summer. Officials have said that hospital admissions in Texas related to the virus are up by 70% over the past month. National admissions rose 116% between June 22 and August 26, as previously reported by The Dallas Express.
The federal agency announced that it had officially approved updated vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer for “emergency use” in a press release on September 11.
Regardless of previous vaccination history, people aged 5 years and older can receive an updated vaccine two months after their last dose.
Individuals between the ages of 6 months and 4 years who have been previously vaccinated are eligible to receive one or two doses of the updated vaccine, depending on the timing and the number of doses previously received.
Unvaccinated individuals between the ages of 6 months and 4 years are eligible to receive three doses of the Pfizer vaccine or two of Moderna’s.
The FDA claimed that the vaccines will cause similar side effects as previous ones and should provide “good” protection against the current variants in circulation.
Moreover, officials claimed that the “benefits of these vaccines for individuals 6 months of age and older outweigh their risks.”
“Vaccination remains critical to public health and continued protection against serious consequences of COVID-19, including hospitalization and death,” said Peter Marks, director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, in a press release. “The public can be assured that these updated vaccines have met the agency’s rigorous scientific standards for safety, effectiveness, and manufacturing quality. We very much encourage those who are eligible to consider getting vaccinated.”
As previously reported by The Dallas Express, COVID-19 variants have been causing relatively mild symptoms in recent years.
“The behavior of this strain seems to be on par with the various omicron strains that we’ve seen,” said Dr. Mark Casanova, a member of the Texas Medical Association’s COVID-19 task force, speaking about one of the more prevalent variants in circulation. “We’re not seeing individuals get particularly more sick than before.”
Still, some companies have been reimposing mask mandates amid the spike in confirmed COVID-19 cases, sparking pushback from critics of the pandemic-era rules, as previously reported by The Dallas Express.
