After hours of deliberation, the panellists voted by 19 to two in favour of using redesigned booster shots, rather than simply using the currently authorised vaccines – although there was broad acknowledgement that the decision comes on the back of inadequate data.
The two specialists who voted no said they did so because there was no guarantee that Omicron would still be the dominant variant at the end of this year.
Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna – whose mRNA jabs have formed the backbone of the US immunisation effort – have both developed vaccines that include an Omicron component, with preliminary data showing neutralising antibody responses.
