COVID-19 Vaccine Requirements

US health officials released new guidelines for COVID-19 vaccine booster shots yesterday, narrowing approval to Americans over 65 and anyone older than 6 months with at least one risk factor for severe illness. For those between 6 months and 64 years, regulators will require more stringent randomized controlled trials to test the clinical efficacy and safety of each booster rather than rely on immune response data.

Developed under the first Trump administration, COVID-19 vaccines became publicly available in December 2020 in the US. Globally, researchers estimate the vaccines saved between 15 million and 20 million lives, with average rates of severe side effects such as myocarditis reported between 1 and 10 per million. Since the pandemic, the uptake of boosters—tweaked annually based on dominant strains—has fallen significantly. About half of Americans 75 or older received this season’s shot.

The announcement was made via a New England Journal of Medicine article. Read it in full here.