The US Food and Drug Administration on Thursday cleared the latest round of updated Covid-19 vaccines, opening the door for drugmakers to start sending doses to pharmacies, clinics and doctors’ offices nationwide.
Moderna, Novavax-Sanofi and Pfizer-BioNTech all said their revised Covid shots had received FDA approval. The decision follows guidance from an advisory committee that the new vaccines should be designed to target XFG, the variant currently driving the largest share of infections.
The companies had previously indicated they would be able to produce the updated vaccines in time for the 2026-27 immunization season.
The newly approved Covid vaccines are authorized for adults 65 and older, as well as for younger people who have underlying health conditions that increase their risk of severe illness from a Covid infection. For those younger high-risk groups, eligibility depends on the manufacturer: Moderna’s vaccine is cleared for children older than six months, Pfizer-BioNTech’s for people age five and up, and Novavax-Sanofi’s for those 12 and older.
The approval comes after the Trump administration last fall stepped back from broad Covid vaccine recommendations for the entire public, a shift that left many Americans uncertain about whether they qualified for another shot. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now says Covid vaccination is recommended through “individual-based decision making”.
What remains unsettled is when, or even whether, the administration will release fresh Covid vaccine recommendations for the 2026-27 season. The CDC’s vaccine advisory committee has been effectively stalled since a March ruling blocked health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr’s appointment of a new group of vaccine advisers to the panel.
That lack of a functioning CDC vaccine panel could also complicate insurance coverage for the updated Covid shots. Health insurers are generally required to cover vaccines that the advisory panel recommends, but without a formal recommendation, it remains uncertain how coverage decisions will be handled.
CDC tracking tools show that Covid-19 activity, measured through testing data and wastewater surveillance, remains low across the US, though indicators have been climbing in recent weeks.
Reuters contributed reporting
