U.S. REACHES DEAL FOR MODERNA OMICRON VACCINE
Government agrees to buy 66M doses for fall campaign
The Biden administration said Friday it has reached an agreement with Moderna to buy 66 million doses of the company’s next generation of COVID-19 vaccine that targets the highly transmissible Omicron variant, enough supply this winter for all who want the upgraded booster.
The order of the bivalent shot follows the announcement last month that the federal government had secured 105 million doses of a similar vaccine from rival drugmaker Pfizer. Both orders are scheduled for delivery in the fall and winter, assuming regulators sign off on their effectiveness. The Pentagon said the Moderna contract was worth $1.74 billion.
The Omicron strain has been dominant in the U.S. since December, with the BA.5 subvariant now causing a massive wave of infections across the country, even infecting President Joe Biden.
“We must stay vigilant in our fight against COVID-19 and continue to expand Americans’ access to the best vaccines and treatments,” Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier
Becerra said in a statement. “As we look to the fall and winter, we’re doing just that — ensuring Americans have the tools they need to stay safe and help keep our nation moving forward.”
The U.S. orders with Pfizer and Moderna include options to purchase 300 million doses each, but reaching that total will require more funding from Congress, the Biden administration said.
The announcement of the new purchase came as federal regulators confirmed
Friday that they are no longer considering authorizing a second COVID-19 booster shot for all adults under 50 this summer, focusing instead on the revamped vaccines for the fall that will target the newest viral subvariants.
That means the U.S. won’t pursue a summer round of boosters using the current vaccines for adults under 50, as some Biden administration officials and outside experts previously suggested. They had argued that another round of shots
now could help head off rising cases and hospitalizations caused by the highly transmissible omicron strains.
Currently, all Americans age 5 and older are eligible for a booster shot five months after their initial primary series. Fourth doses of the Pfizer or Moderna shots — a second booster — are recommended for Americans 50 and older and for younger people with serious health issues that make them more vulnerable to COVID-19.
The FDA urged eligible adults who haven’t been boosted to get their extra shot now: “You can still benefit from existing booster options and leave time to receive an updated booster in the fall,” the agency said in a statement.
The White House has also emphasized that getting a fourth dose now won’t impact anyone’s ability to get Omicron-targeted shots once they’re made available — although how long it has been since their last dose will play a role in how soon they’re eligible.
Two Omicron subvariants, BA.4 and BA.5, are more contagious than their predecessors and have pushed new daily cases above 125,000 and hospitalizations to 6,300. Those are the highest levels since February, though deaths have remained low at about 360 per day, thanks to widespread immunity and improved treatments against the virus.
The subvariants are offshoots of the strain responsible for nearly all of the virus spread in the U.S. this year.
All the COVID-19 vaccines given in the U.S. until now have been based on the original version of the virus that began spreading across the country in early 2020.
About 261 million Americans have received at least one COVID-19 shot, but only 108 million have received a booster.