COVID-19 Vaccinations Continue on Schedule

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) agencies recently confirmed no change in COVID-19 vaccination practice recommendations.

As of January 13, 2023, the CDC recommends that everyone ages six months and older stay up-to-date with vaccination as the most effective tool for reducing death, hospitalization, and severe disease from COVID-19.

This CDC recommendation includes individuals who are currently eligible to receive an updated (bivalent) vaccine. The comprehensive safety data for the bivalent COVID-19 vaccines are available here.

Other preliminary data from outside the U.S. have demonstrated more than 80% protection against severe disease and death from the bivalent vaccine compared to those who have not received the bivalent vaccine.

Furthermore, data have shown an updated COVID-19 vaccine reduces the risk of hospitalization from COVID-19 by nearly 3-fold compared to those previously vaccinated but have not yet received the updated vaccine.

And data have shown that the updated COVID-19 vaccine also reduces the risk of death from COVID-19 by nearly 19-fold compared to those who are unvaccinated.

The CDC and FDA will continue to evaluate data from vaccine safety systems. These analyses will be discussed at the upcoming January 26, 2023, digital meeting of the FDA’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee.

This FDA meeting will start at 8:30 AM and is open to the public via YouTube https://youtu.be/ZjULNuSYfd0.

Once again, the CDC stated no change is recommended in COVID-19 vaccination practice, which can be found at this link.