Topline
An advisory panel at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended that Americans aged six months or older receive the new version of the Covid-19 vaccines that are specially designed to target the XBB lineage, the newest strains of the virus—the latest regulatory step toward getting updated shots in arms.
Key Facts
The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, an arm of the CDC composed of medical experts, voted 13-1 to recommend the vaccines for people six months or older during its meeting Tuesday.
Now the vaccines, which are produced by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, will be reviewed by CDC Director Mandy Cohen, who is expected to give the final signoff needed to begin administering the shots—the CDC director isn’t required to accept the committee’s recommendation, but typically does.
The committee also recommended that providers stop administering the bivalent Covid-19 vaccine, which was the most recent iteration of the vaccine prior to this new one and was approved last year to target earlier coronavirus strains.
The Food and Drug Administration similarly gave its approval to the vaccines on Monday.
Key Background
These vaccines are designed to protect against the XBB lineage of coronavirus, a group of new variants that emerged in late 2022 and have become the most common type of coronavirus circulating in the United States.
This is a breaking story and will be updated.