The most recent COVID booster shot has now been authorized to be used by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for defense against Omicron-specific variants and is currently rolling out across the country.
The shot from Pfizer is allowed to be used in people 12 and older, while the Moderna shot will be administered to those which are 18 and older. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has said that individuals must wait at the least two months after their latest round of vaccines to receive the booster and three months after testing positive for the virus.
“These recent bivalent vaccines are designed to supply extra protection against the omicron variants, which are actually the dominant strain of the virus,” Illinois Department of Public Health Director Dr. Sameer Vohra said in an announcement, as reported by WMAQ, an NBC affiliate out of Chicago. “Getting up so far now is particularly vital for many who are vulnerable to serious outcomes, because the updated vaccines offer protection from hospitalization and even death.”
Like past vaccinations for COVID-19, the upgraded booster does have some unwanted side effects that folks may experience after getting the shot. These unwanted side effects are believed to be much like previous vaccinations for the virus.
While the newest booster shot was released to the general public before clinical trials were accomplished, the FDA and CDC believes that based on available data and past vaccinations the unwanted side effects are similar to what has been seen previously, CNBC reported.
Data from a booster that targeted the BA.1 subvariant of Omicron, which was never released to the general public, has shown unwanted side effects of pain, fatigue, headache, muscle pain, chills, joint pain, redness and swelling on the injection site, and fever inside seven days of administration.
These unwanted side effects are expected to be similar with the newest COVID booster that the authorization was based on. In clinical trials of the BA.1 shot, unwanted side effects were very mild in most patients.
In Pfizer’s trial of the BA.1 shot, 52% of individuals experienced mild pain on the injection site, with 8% having moderate pain and 0.3% reporting severe pain, as reported by CNBC. Mild or moderate headache was experienced by about 26% of participants, with only 0.3% reporting a severe headache.
Within the Moderna trial with the BA.1 shot, 59% of individuals had fatigue, with 4% reporting it at a Grade 3 level that is taken into account significant in stopping day by day activity, CNBC reported.
Because each the Pfizer and Moderna boosters have the identical dosage as was tested with the BA.1 shot, it is believed that safety profiles might be very similar, Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Kid’s Hospital of Philadelphia and member of an independent advisory group to the FDA, told CNBC.
The brand new Pfizer and Moderna boosters are specifically aimed toward providing protection against the unique COVID virus and likewise Omicron BA.5 and BA.4 subvariants of the virus which are spreading across the country.
In line with the CDC, the BA.5 subvariant now comprises 87.5% of all recent COVID cases, while the BA.4 subvariant of Omicron makes up 2.2% of recent COVID cases.