New booster doses of COVID-19 vaccine should be available soon to anyone 12 and older who wants one.
An advisory panel to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended the boosters Thursday after members spent more than six hours reviewing data on the state of the pandemic and the new shots.
CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky signed off on their recommendation shortly after.
The Food and Drug Administration gave emergency authorization Wednesday to a “bivalent” vaccine that targets both the original virus and the BA.4 and BA.5 variants that now dominate the world.
As requested by the companies, the Pfizer-BioNTech booster was authorized for anyone ages 12 and up, while Moderna’s vaccine was authorized for adults only. Both were authorized for use at least two months after any previous COVID-19 shots.
Although data on effectiveness remains incomplete, officials expect the more targeted booster will increase protection against severe disease and prevent milder infections for some period of time, as well as long COVID, which leads to lingering symptoms such as profound fatigue and brain fog.
The companies said they are ready to ship the modified boosters this month. Pfizer has said it has the capacity to provide up to 15 million doses by Sept. 9 from its Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin, production site.
Also in the news:
► A recent study found the COVID-19 pandemic was associated with a rise in the number of people having nightmares.
► First lady Jill Biden tested negative for COVID-19 following a rebound case, the White House announced Tuesday.
► Researchers at Cornell University found people are more likely to get a COVID-19 booster with cash incentives, according to a recent survey.
► Chinese officials ordered a lockdown Thursday for 21 million people in the southwestern city of Chengdu, citing an outbreak of COVID-19 cases.
📘What we’re reading: USA TODAY reporters investigated claims against companies that profited in the pandemic. Read more here.
CDC report: 44% of people hospitalized with COVID got third dose, booster
Nearly half of Americans hospitalized in the spring for COVID-19 were fully vaccinated and got a third dose or booster, according to a report by the CDC.
Looking at hospitalization data from March 20 to May 31, when the omicron subvariant BA.2 was the dominant strain, researchers found 39.1% of patients received a primary vaccination series and at least one booster or additional dose, while 5% were fully vaccinated plus two boosters.
The report, published last week in the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, found hospitalization rates among people over 65 increased threefold over the study period as rates among people under 65 increased 1.7-fold.
Despite the findings, study authors said rates among unvaccinated adults were still 3.4 times higher than those who were vaccinated.
US life expectancy plunges for a second consecutive year
U.S. life expectancy dropped for the second consecutive year in 2021, falling by nearly a year from 2020, according to a government report being released Wednesday.
In the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic, the estimated American lifespan has shortened by nearly three years. The last comparable decrease happened in the early 1940s, during the height of World War II.
Life expectancy is an estimate of the average number of years a baby born in a given year might expect to live, given death rates at that time.
CDC officials blamed COVID-19 for about half the decline in 2021, a year when vaccinations became widely available but new coronavirus variants caused waves of hospitalizations and deaths. Other contributors to the decline are longstanding problems: drug overdoses, heart disease, suicide and chronic liver disease.
“It’s a dismal situation. It was bad before and it’s gotten worse,” said Samuel Preston, a University of Pennsylvania demographer.
Over $71M spent on COVID treatments deauthorized by the FDA, study shows
U.S. providers continued to administer more than 150,000 doses of monoclonal antibodies for COVID-19 after they were deauthorized by the FDA, according to a recent study.
The agency pulled its authorization of two monoclonals from drugmakers Regeneron and Eli Lilly on Jan. 24 after data showed they were ineffective against the omicron variant.
Despite deauthorization, study authors found 158,395 doses were administered between Jan. 24 and June 29, totaling more than $71 million spent on ineffective treatments, according to the report published this week in JAMA Network Open.
Florida and New York accounted for the majority of doses administered – 24% and 20%, respectively – and 11 states administered more than 50% of their remaining supply. Researchers found administered doses reached a peak in late March before gradually declining for the remainder of the study period.
“Whether deauthorized treatments will be covered by payers and whether the FDA will take regulatory action against entities violating its guidance remains unknown,” study authors said.
Students’ reading and math scores see steep decline during pandemic
Average reading and math scores among 9-year-old students saw the steepest decline in decades during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a report by the National Center for Education Statistics.
Reading scores declined by 5 points from 2020 to 2022, the largest decline since 1990. Math scores declined by 7 points, its first decline.
The report also found steeper declines among lower performing students in the 25th percentile compared to the higher performing students at the 75th percentile.
Of those who recalled learning remotely, the highest performing students had greater access to a desktop computer, laptop or tablet and a quiet place to work at least some of the time compared to lower performers.
Contributing: Karen Weintraub, USA TODAY; Associated Press. Follow Adrianna Rodriguez on Twitter: @AdriannaUSAT.
Health and patient safety coverage at USA TODAY is made possible in part by a grant from the Masimo Foundation for Ethics, Innovation and Competition in Healthcare. The Masimo Foundation does not provide editorial input.
