The Food and Drug Administration is considering a recommendation for tailoring the COVID-19 vaccines for the 2024-2025 respiratory virus season to the JN.1 variant, according to Reuters. It’s been the dominant variant this year, and shots may target JN.1’s subvariants as well. The subvariant KP.2 was estimated to account for more than 28% of COVID-19 cases over a 2-week period in mid-May. Not unlike the annual flu vaccine, COVID vaccines are developed months in advance with consideration for the known, prevalent strains. Optimizing the vaccine composition in time for production and distribution is always a challenge.
Plenty of COVID tests in urgent care: US health officials tend to look to Australia to forecast the forthcoming respiratory virus season. As winter begins down under, COVID cases are rising to moderate levels with a number of highly transmissible COVID-19 subvariants, according to ABC News.