FDA Expert Committee Votes to Update Annual COVID-19 Vaccine Strains Without Safety Data By Theresa Wrangham
Natural Immunity on the Rise
While the VRBPAC meeting aimed to select the annual COVID-19 strain, epidemiological data presented by CDC officials demonstrated that hospitalization rates and deaths are at their lowest point since 2020. Additionally, data demonstrated that high rates of natural immunity (90 to 99 percent) existed in children ranging from infancy to 17 years of age by the end of 2022. Similarly, data noted that for individuals from age 16 to over 65 years of age had also attained high rates of natural immunity (72 to 89 percent) by the summer of 2023, which some committee members later lamented as influencing low COVID-19 vaccine uptake.
https://www.nvic.org/newsletter/june-2024/fda-comm-votes-to-update-annual-c-19