Updated COVID Booster Could Be Available Soon

The updated COVID booster could be available as early as three weeks. This is if the CDC and FDA work through their processes for authorization as expected. The updated COVID-19 boosters were created to target a dominant strain of the virus.

At the end of June, the FDA directed Moderna and Pfizer to make vaccines for the upcoming winter. This work has been underway, and the next step is for the two agencies to review the data from each company. However, neither the FDA nor the CDC has announced a specific timeline.

Will The Updated COVID Booster Be Available Sooner Than Later?

The rollout was expected in September, but Jha’s estimate on Tuesday was the most specific to date. “We’re going to know more about this in the upcoming weeks, and these vaccines will become available by early to mid-September,” he said. “But the big picture, bottom line, is these are substantial upgrades in our vaccines,” Jha said. “And those vaccines are coming very, very soon.”

In addition, Jha is hopeful there will eventually be enough vaccines for any adult who wants the new booster. “We’re still working on trying to pull more resources from other places. I would like to get to a point where every adult in America who wants a vaccine can get one. I’m hopeful we will be there. We’re not quite there yet in terms of how many vaccine doses we’ve been able to buy,” Jha said.

So far, the U.S. has contracted over 100 million doses of the updated booster from Pfizer and 66 million doses from Moderna. Both contracts with the leading COVID vaccine manufacturers include an option for hundreds of million doses in the future. Assuming that both companies can complete their orders, the U.S. would have about 171 million doses of the updated COVID booster.