CDC panel approves boosters tailored to omicron BA.4 and BA.5 variants

Roll up those sleeves again. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has approved the latest vaccine incarnation targeting the rogue omicron variants of COVID-19.

Anyone over 12 is eligible for the Pfizer shot, and adults for the Moderna, according to the CDC.

Members of a federal CDC advisory panel spent six hours Thursday combing through evidence and data on the pandemic’s current status, and the new shots, USA Today reported. They then voted 13-1 to recommend them for emergency use.

CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky is slated to sign off on the recommendation.

The okay comes a day after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) did the same thing, and was the last barrier toward getting those shots in arms.

Both Moderna and Pfizer make the vaccines, which target the most contagious version of COVID-19 yet. The shots will be available starting soon after Labor Day.

The “bivalent” vaccines target the original strain of COVID that burst onto the world scene in 2020, and the subvariants of the omicron strain that evolved later. The goal is to get ahead of a new infection wave expected this fall and winter, federal officials have said.

Nearly 90% of new COVID-19 cases in the U.S. stem from the BA.5 subvariant.

Pfizer’s research has shown a tenfold increase in neutralizing antibodies against omicron, the company said in June, though to date it has only been tested on mice.