White House officials said Tuesday that they expect the U.S. to offer Covid-19 booster vaccines on a yearly basis like flu shots.
A nurse prepares to administer a vaccine.
The U.S. is moving towards a path of vaccinating against Covid at a "cadence similar to that of the annual influenza vaccine," with retooled shots each year engineered to protect against the most prevalent coronaviruses strain at that time.
Booster shots that protect against both the original coronaviruses strain and omicron subvariants will likely provide better protection than the original Covid vaccine, according to health officials.
Fauci said that people at high risk for severe illness may need to get vaccine more often.
The vaccine caught up with the coronaviruses for the first time since December 2020.
For a lot of Americans, a single annual Covid shot should provide a high degree of protection all year.
According to the CDC, only half of those who received primary series Covid vaccines have gotten a booster shot.
A universal Covid vaccine could be a better alternative to repeating booster shots, as some experts warn that they are not an effective way to tackle the Pandemic. Attempts are being made to create a shot.
All Americans 12 and older will be able to get updated Covid booster shots this week. According to the CDC, Omicron subvariant BA.5 makes up 86 percent of all Covid cases in the U.S., and is better at evading immunity than earlier Covid strains. The new boosters were rolled out to give Americans better protection against the Covid strain of coronaviruses, which caused record numbers of hospitalizations and deaths last winter. Covid cases began to rise again this summer, but infections have begun to fall recently. The new booster should be given at least two months after the last Covid shot, according to the CDC. The shots and Covid treatments can make deaths from this virus vanishingly rare.
The White House believes that covid vaccines will become an annual event.
The US plans to shift to annual covid shots.
Live updates on the coronaviruses.
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