New COVID-19 Vaccine Boosters Target Omicron: What To Know In MA

MASSACHUSETTS — A new COVID-19 booster shot aimed at the omicron variant subvariant was approved by federal health officials and will soon be available in Massachusetts.

The Massachusetts Department of Public Health said on Friday that the doses will be available starting this upcoming week. The state did not yet indicate how many of the doses it is expecting or whether they would be available at all sites where COVID-19 vaccines are administered.

On Thursday, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky endorsed the CDC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices’ recommendations for use of the updated boosters from Pfizer-BioNTech for people ages 12 years and older and from Moderna for people ages 18 years and older.

Until now, booster doses have targeted the original coronavirus strain. The new "updated boosters," as the Food and Drug Administration calls them, will tweak the existing vaccine produced by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna to take aim at both the BA.4 and BA.5 omicron subvariants. That's the lineage that is now dominant in the United States and predicted to circulate this fall and winter.

The new boosters are a combination or "bivalent" shots. This means the doses contain half the original vaccine and half the new formula targeting omicron.

The updated shots will be open to anyone who already had their primary vaccinations at least two months before receiving the booster dose.

The United States has purchased more than 170 million doses from the two companies. Pfizer said it could ship up to 15 million doses by the end of next week.

Officials hope the updated booster dose will help curb another fall and winter infection surge.

The big question is just how jab-weary Massachusetts residents and the rest of the country are. Half of vaccinated Americans got the first recommended booster dose, and only a third of those 50 and older who were urged to get a second booster did so.

Massachusetts remains one of the most vaccinated and boosted states in the country. As of Wednesday, the state reported that 6.3 million residents received at least one dose of a Moderna, Pfizer or J&J vaccine, 5.5 million residents were "fully vaccinated" with two doses, 3.2 million had received a first booster shot and 700,000 residents had received two booster shots.

According to the state, more than 99 percent of all residents age 60 or older are fully vaccinated, with at least 89 percent of all those 12 years or older fully vaccinated.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.