The updated COVID vaccine should become available in mid-September, along with a likely recommendation that everyone should get the booster shot, U.S. health officials said this week.
The timeline was laid out by officials with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Food and Drug Administration in a briefing with reporters.
“Vaccination is going to continue to be key this year because immunity wanes and because the COVID-19 virus continues to change,” a CDC official said. “For those reasons, vaccines remain the best protection against hospitalization and death. And in the case of the COVID vaccines they also help reduce the likelihood of ‘long COVID.'”