FDA advisers recommend that Covid-19 boosters for fall should drop original strain

A panel of outside advisers to the US Food and Drug Administration voted Thursday that Covid-19 vaccines should be updated for the fall as the pandemic continues to recede from daily life but the coronavirus shows no signs of slowing its evolution.

The panel of 21 advisers voted unanimously that the new vaccine should protect against just one strain of the SARS-CoV-2 virus – a departure from the currently available bivalent vaccines – and should target one of three that are currently circulating in the US. Called XBB.1.5, XBB.1.16 and XBB.2.3, they’re all sublineages of the Omicron variant.