The FDA approves new covid vaccines
Vaccination for the Long Covid Coronavirus and its Implications for the Coronaviruses in the U.S.
An advisory committee unanimously recommended in June that manufacturers make updated Covid vaccines for this fall. The FDA advisers originally recommended that the new vaccine target the Omicron branch, based on the evidence at the time. The agency asked vaccine makers to target the KP.2 strain instead of the JN.1 variant because it was a descendant of the circulating variant.
The newer strains have taken over but they are still part of the omicron group. The hope is that the vaccines are close enough to boost immunity, and protect people, through the big summer wave and the surge expected this winter.
The US Food and Drug Administration recently approved new mRNA vaccines that target the circulating variant of the coronaviruses, despite a surge of Covid-19 infections.
Protection against hospitalization and death due to Covid is boosted by the new formula. Over a million people were hospitalized due to Covid-19 and over seven thousand people died from the disease in the US alone. Long Covid is a chronic condition that lasts at least three months after an infections, and vaccination can protect you against it.
The last version of the Covid vaccine was greenlit by the FDA on September 11, 2023. The XBB.1.5 variant has been the most popular in the US during the first half of the 21st century. The virus has mutated substantially since then, and the currently circulating FLiRT variants are thought to be more transmissible and evade the immune system more effectively than prior versions of the virus.
Marks says, “you would like to get protection against what’s going on right now because we’re in a wave.” “So I would probably get vaccinated in as timely a manner as possible. Because right now the match is reasonably close. You will probably get the most benefit from the vaccine, against what is currently circulating. Soon after it’s rolled out, I’m going to be on line.
Some people could consider waiting until September or October if they’re especially concerned about maximizing protection through the winter surge and over the holidays.
According to Dr. George Diaz, chief of medicine at Providence Regional Medical Center, everyone should get the new vaccines. It will prevent transmission to other people if you have the vaccine. So that will help reduce the spread of the disease in the community, especially to the most vulnerable people. You are helping others as well as yourself.
And regardless of the public health advice, it’s far from clear how many people will want one of the new shots. Only about 22% of eligible adults got one of the last ones.
Insured people can get all three vaccines for free if they get their shot from an in-network provider. But a federal program that paid for the vaccines for uninsured adults expired.
Kelly Moore, the founder of Immunize.org, an advocacy group, said that they are worried about how people will access protection and find ways to solve the problem. “We know that the people who are uninsured are the least likely to be able to afford becoming ill – missing work, staying home from school.”
“Any natural immunity or vaccine immunity from 2023 has reached a nadir,” Hudson says. This is a perfect storm for a more infectious form of Covid.
The busiest time of the year for respiratory viruses is in the winter. But Covid tends to peak in both winter and summer, and the current summertime surge is likely due to the emergence of new variants and waning protection of the previous vaccine.
The disease is constantly changing like the flu. And similar to how flu vaccines are updated every year to adapt to the virus’s changing structure, the Covid vaccines are also being updated. The flu and the SARS-coV-2 are both changing very fast so it’s difficult to see which one will bedominant when the vaccine comes out. She says that the flu is more experienced than the variant that is spinning through it.
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved two new COVID-19 vaccine candidates that target the “long” coronavirus variant. The two vaccines are called KP.2 and JN.1 variants. The last version of the vaccine was greenlit by the FDA on September 11, 2023. The two vaccines are the same, which was approved in October last year.