The Food and Drug Administration on Friday shortened the time frame for receiving a booster dose of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine, because of the fast-spreading omicron variant.
The agency cut the time to at least five months after receiving the second dose of the shot, from the original six months. The policy is for adults at least 18 years old.
“The country is in the middle of a wave of the highly contagious omicron variant, which spreads more rapidly than the original SARS-CoV-2 virus and other variants that have emerged,” said Dr. Peter Marks, director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, in a statement. “Vaccination is our best defense against COVID-19, including the circulating variants, and shortening the length of time between completion of a primary series and a booster dose may help reduce waning immunity.”
On Monday, the FDA shortened the time that a person can receive a booster dose of Pfizer-BioNTech’s vaccine to at least five months, also down from six months. The agency also expanded the use of booster shots to include adolescents ages 12 to 15 and certain immunocompromised children ages 5 to 11.
The most frequently reported side effects from the booster dose of Moderna’s vaccine were pain, redness and swelling at the injection site, chills, muscle or joint pain, headache and fatigue, the FDA said.
More than 207 million people in the U.S. were fully vaccinated, about 62% of the population, as of Thursday, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Of those, nearly 73 million have received a booster dose, equaling about 35% of the fully vaccinated population.
The omicron variant is behind a huge COVID-19 spike over the last several weeks, with U.S. case counts topping 1 million on Monday, according to the Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center.
Death rates, however, are not rising with the case counts, and many front-line medical personnel report that the variant, while highly contagious, seems less deadly and with milder symptoms than earlier strains.
For more information, visit The Washington Times COVID-19 resource page.
• Shen Wu Tan can be reached at stan@washingtontimes.com.
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