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So the covid shot is going the way of the flu shot: it’s about to become an annual thing. The FDA just proposed that the covid vaccine switch to a schedule like the flu shot: dispensed once yearly in the fall/winter before the seasonal surges. People will only need one dose to have immunity for a period of time and the FDA is hoping this switch will make things easier for everyone. The FDA also said that it will retire the original vaccine from 2020 and only use the newer iterations that include protection against the omicron variant.
The Food and Drug Administration has announced new changes for how the COVID-19 vaccinations could be administered moving forward.
On Monday, the agency published a briefing document proposing that the COVID vaccine switch to an annual shot ahead of the winter months when the virus would be the most dominant — similar to the strategy used when administering the flu vaccine.
Individuals would only need one dose of the vaccine to “restore protective immunity for a period of time.” The change was proposed in hopes of making the process simpler for the public and manufacturers and minimizing errors from doctors.
“This simplification of vaccine composition should reduce complexity, decrease vaccine administration errors due to the complexity of the number of different vial presentations, and potentially increase vaccine compliance by allowing clearer communication,” the briefing document read.
The agency also announced that it plans to retire the original vaccine, which first hit the market at the end of 2020, and use only Moderna and Pfizer’s doses that protect against both the original strain of COVID and the omicron variant.
[From People]
We kind of suspected this would happen, that covid would soon be treated more like the flu. So it’s good to see it confirmed. Not everyone will get the vaccine, just like not everyone gets the flu shot, but hopefully we’ve reached the point where covid is largely manageable, if not completely preventable. People are always going to act in their own interests, but hopefully this new of the vaccine switching to an annual shot like the flu shot will convince some holdouts. After nearly three years, covid finally got me in December, just a month after I’d gotten my second booster. I had mild versions of literally every symptom except shortness of breath, so I was laid up for a week, but it probably would be been so much worse if I hadn’t been double vaxxed and boosted. Luckily rates of this and the other respiratory illnesses are finally going down after the winter. Hopefully this schedule change will make things easier, convince some holdouts, and get us back to something closer to normal.
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