FDA proposes shift to annual COVID shots

STORY: In a major shift to simplify the country's COVID-vaccine strategy, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Monday proposed that all healthy Americans should get one COVID-19 shot annually - similar to the flu shot.

In briefing documents ahead of a meeting on Thursday, the FDA made clear it hopes annual shots will encourage more Americans to roll up their sleeves.

FARBER: "We need to do something different, because right now it's confusing..."

Infectious diseases physician, Dr. Bruce Farber:

"...the messaging has been very, very mixed and confused about how important the vaccine is. The FDA [Food and Drug Administration] and the CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] has said everybody should be getting the bivalent vaccine. Many other people say only if you're elderly. So, they've been given a lot of confusing messages. And one consistent unified message with a standard schedule I think would make a lot of sense."

Another reason behind the possible new approach - a recognition that asking Americans to take a new vaccine for each emerging variant is a losing strategy.

"...the idea that we were going to create new vaccines that were going to hit the current circulating virus is pretty much hopeless, because the variants changed so quickly that by the time you make a new vaccine, a new variant will be around...And so it is time to simplify things. It's time to give one message to people so they don't have to keep track of what up to date means, which booster, how often it's going to change and the like."

While the COVID vaccine would be on a schedule similar to the flu shot... Dr. Farber said people shouldn't confuse the two respiratory illnesses, as they remain difficult maladies.

"Flu tends to occur, as you know, seasonally, and people don't get multiple episodes of flu in the same season, and they don't get it year round, and they don't get it several times a year. So I don't think we can say that this is similar. But yes, the vaccine approach will be similar and that is and perhaps can be done simultaneously with flu vaccines. So you'll get one shot."

The proposal will be examined by an FDA expert panel on Thursday.

If the panel votes in favor of the proposal, and is backed by the FDA and the CDC, Pfizer and Moderna's bivalent vaccines, which target both the Omicron and the original variants, would be used for all COVID vaccine doses, and not just as boosters.