The vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer and its partner BioNTech were approved Monday for people 12 and older and under an emergency use authorization for children ages 6 months to 11 years old.
"Vaccination remains critical to public health and continued protection against serious consequences of COVID-19, including hospitalization and death," said Dr. Peter Marks, director of the FDA's Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, in a statement.
"The public can be assured that these updated vaccines have met the agency's rigorous scientific standards for safety, effectiveness, and manufacturing quality.
"The data so far suggest that the new COVID vaccines should be really quite effective against even the new emerging variants that we have seen come up in the last weeks," Dr. Ashish Jha, the dean of the Brown School of Public Health who served as the White House COVID-19 Response Coordinator.
The CDC is likely to recommend the shots for anyone who's at high risk for serious complications from COVID, such as older people and those with weaker immune systems or other health problems.
"I am worried about whether Americans are going to agree to take this booster in large numbers, and if they do whether they'll walk not run," says Dr. Peter Hotez of the Baylor College of Medicine and Texas Children's Hospital.
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