Illinois expects to get about 580,000 initial doses next week of updated COVID-19 boosters that target omicron subvariants, the state health department said Wednesday.
On top of that, Chicago anticipates its own separate allocation of about 150,000 initial doses, according to the city health department.
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The U.S. Food and Drug Administration authorized the boosters Wednesday, and a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advisory committee is expected to consider them Thursday. Once the boosters get a thumbs-up from the CDC, health care workers can begin administering them.
The boosters are meant to protect against both the original strain of COVID-19 as well as the BA.4 and BA.5 omicron subvariants. Those subvariants now make up the majority of COVID-19 cases in the U.S. and are expected to continue circulating this fall and winter, according to the FDA.
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The updated boosters are made by Pfizer and Moderna and are to be given at least two months after a person’s most recent COVID-19 vaccine shot. The updated Pfizer booster is for people ages 12 and older, and the updated Moderna booster is for people ages 18 and older.
As with previous COVID-19 vaccines, the shots are expected to be available at pharmacies, hospitals, health care providers and other locations.
“As we head into fall and begin to spend more time indoors, we strongly encourage anyone who is eligible to consider receiving a booster dose with a bivalent COVID-19 vaccine to provide better protection against currently circulating variants,” Dr. Robert M. Califf, the FDA commissioner, said in a news release.
In Chicago, both the average numbers of new cases and daily hospitalizations are down from last week, though Cook County remains at “medium” COVID-19 risk level, according to the CDC, based on the rate of new hospital admissions, hospital beds occupied by COVID-19 patients and the number of new COVID-19 cases per 100,000 people.
About 74% of Illinois residents are considered fully vaccinated, according to the state health department.
The FDA authorized the updated vaccines Wednesday before clinical trials in people have concluded. The FDA said it based its decision to move the vaccines forward based on safety and effectiveness data of previous Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines, as well as data from clinical trials of a COVID-19 vaccine that targeted a different omicron subvariant.
“The FDA has extensive experience with strain changes for annual influenza vaccines,” said Dr. Peter Marks, director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, in a news release. “We are confident in the evidence supporting these authorizations.”
Pfizer has said it plans to submit an application in October to the FDA for authorization of an omicron-targeting booster for children ages 5 to 11.
