Americans may be able to receive the next Covid vaccinations as early as Wednesday, the latest in a trifecta of vaccines designed to prevent respiratory infections this fall and winter.
On Monday, the Food and Drug Administration approved updated Covid vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna. A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention scientific advisory committee is meeting Tuesday to review the data and make more specific recommendations about who should be vaccinated and when.
“I expect them to come out and recommend it to everyone,” Dr. Ashish Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health, who served as the White House Covid czar until June.
Major pharmacies will most likely have vaccines available this week, assuming Dr. Mandy Cohen, the new CDC director, agrees with the recommendations.
For some Americans, the vaccines can’t come soon enough. Covid-related hospitalizations and deaths have been rising steadily since July, although the numbers are still low compared to the same period in recent years.
But many others now see Covid as only a mild threat. Fewer than half of adults over 65 and only about one in five American adults overall opted for the bivalent booster shot that was offered last fall.
Vaccines against influenza and respiratory syncytial virus are already available. The flu vaccination is recommended for everyone aged 6 months and older and the RSV vaccination for everyone aged 60 and over in consultation with a healthcare provider.
Those most at risk – older adults, immunocompromised people and pregnant women – should get both the Covid and flu shots, experts said.
According to the CDC, up to 85 percent of flu-related deaths in recent years have occurred in adults ages 65 and older. Those over 75 also account for the vast majority of hospitalizations and deaths due to Covid.
CDC advisers must decide whether to recommend the new Covid vaccines for younger people who have built up strong immunity through previous vaccinations or infections. (The FDA has approved the vaccinations for almost everyone, but the CDC provides recommendations for clinical use.)
Officials in the UK are only offering the new Covid vaccines to people at high risk, including older adults, people with chronic illnesses and frontline workers. But that decision was made not because of a calculation about who would benefit most, but because of the prohibitive cost of offering the vaccinations to everyone, Dr. Yep.
As with the flu shot, the biggest benefits of the Covid shot could go to those most at risk. Still, the vaccinations could also help those at lower risk recover more quickly after an infection or miss fewer days of work, Dr. Yep.
And even in relatively young and healthy people, Covid poses risks that are harder to define, including long-term effects on the heart and long Covid illness. “I don’t want to diminish the tragedy of younger people potentially being hospitalized,” said Gigi Gronvall, a biosecurity expert at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.
The vaccinations will be available free to most Americans through private insurers and through a new federal program for the uninsured.