A person receives a COVID-19 vaccine dose during a free distribution of COVID-19 rapid test kits for those who received vaccination shots or booster shots, at Union Station on January 7, 2022 in Los Angeles, California.
Mario Tama | Getty Images
The independent panel of advisers to the US Food and Drug Administration expressed doubts about the need to “periodically update” Covid vaccines, noting that it is unclear whether the virus is seasonal, like the flu.
Advisors on Thursday voted unanimously that new jabs for the fall must be monovalent – meaning designed against one variant of Covid – and target one of the omicron XBB strains. Those are now the dominant variants rural.
But the original voice question recorded language on whether the panel recommends a “periodic update” of Covid recordings.
Dr. Peter Marks, chief of the FDA’s vaccine division, asked the panel chairman to remove the wording from the question after several advisers raised concerns.
“As worded, it seems to say, are we in agreement that a regular update is going to be necessary? And I don’t think that’s clear,” said Dr. Arthur Reingold, professor of epidemiology at the University of California, Berkeley.
The panel’s concerns indicate that there is still uncertainty about what the Covid pandemic will look like in the coming years, even as cases and deaths are declining across the country.
The concerns are also the latest pushback against the FDAs proposed shift to annual Covid shots earlier this year – a simplified approach to vaccination that would require annual updates of the shots. That’s similar to how the US rolls out new flu vaccines every fall and winter, the season when cases are booming.
But several advisers warned not to call Covid seasonal like the flu.
“It’s not clear to me yet that this is a seasonal virus,” said Henry Bernstein, a pediatrician at Cohen Children’s Medical Center.
Dr. Mark Sawyer, a professor of clinical pediatrics at the University of California, San Diego, added that describing Covid as “seasonal” could ultimately confuse the public about “when and where to get vaccinated, and how often.”
“I’ll join the choir here. I think using the word season is just as problematic,” said. Dr. Sawyer. “It links the campaign to the flu vaccine. I understand it might be convenient and most efficient to give the vaccines together, but it’s only been a few years and we really don’t know what the Covid season is.”
Unlike the flu, the spread of Covid has often been erratic. The virus is constantly mutating into new variants and has yet to establish itself in a predictable seasonal pattern.
Responding to the advisors, FDA’s Marks stressed that Covid shootings will likely require another update “at some point.”
“This won’t be the final formulation for this vaccine forever,” he said.
A pharmacist prepares to administer COVID-19 vaccine booster shots at an event hosted by the Chicago Department of Public Health at the Southwest Senior Center on September 9, 2022 in Chicago, Illinois.
Scott Olson | Getty Images
The move to an annually updated Covid vaccine is backed by former White House health officials Dr. Ashish Jha and Dr. Anthony Fauci, who believe the country could benefit from a similar approach to the flu shot.
Each year, researchers assess the flu strains in circulation and estimate which ones are most common during the fall and winter before updating the jabs.
“People are going to get their yearly flu vaccine, if they see it as a routine part of care. I don’t — every time I get a flu vaccine, I don’t think, is this my 28th flu shot or 29th flu — I just think, it’s my annual flu shot,” Jha said in a Wednesday interview on PBS News Hour.
“For most people, if they think of it as their annual COVID vaccine, they get it when they get their flu shot, I think it will make an important difference,” he continued.
Recent polls suggest that the public is receptive to the idea.
More than half of the roughly 1,200 adult respondents in the US said they would likely receive an annual Covid vaccine if it were offered similar to an annual flu shot, according to an April questionnaire by health policy organization KFF. That includes 32% who would be “very likely” to do so.
It’s unclear how many Americans will roll up their sleeves to take new photos this fall and winter.
The uptake of the most recent bivalent boosters – targeting the original Covid strain and omicron BA.4 and BA.5 – has been slow.
Only about 17% of the US population – approximately 56 million people – have received Pfizer And Moderns boosters since they were approved in September, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Leading Covid shot maker Pfizer told CNBC last month that an annual Covid schedule could encourage more people to get vaccinated each year.
The shift could help people see Covid injections as just another “very natural part” of protecting their health, said Dr. Mikael Dolsten, Pfizer’s chief scientific officer.
Pfizer is already preparing to switch to an annual schedule by developing “next-generation” versions of its injection, which aims to broaden and extend the protection people receive against the virus to a full year.