U.S. Secures 171 Million Omicron Covid Shots Ahead of Fall

After a recent summer surge of Covid-19 cases prompted by new omicron BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants, the Health and Human Services Department (HHS) bought about 171 million doses of new COVID-19 vaccines that specifically target omicron variants.

The U.S. agreed to buy 66 million doses of Modern’s new vaccine formula and 105 million doses of Pfizer’s updated shots that target omicron, NBCDFW reported.

Once approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the new Pfizer and Moderna vaccines that target the omicron variants will begin to be delivered early this fall, NBCDFW reported.

As the current Pfizer and Modern vaccines and boosters are solely based on the original strain of Covid-19, last month, the FDA encouraged both Pfizer and Moderna to develop vaccines with a new formula that targets the omicron BA.4 and BA.5 subvariant as well as the original, NBCDFW reported.

Read more from NBCDFW here.

In other news:

The Biden administration plans to send out millions of doses of the updated booster shots and vaccines this September. Read more from KXAN Austin here to learn who these booster shots will go to, if you are eligible for one, and how they differ from the previous shots.