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Advisers to the Food and Drug Administration on Thursday recommended updating the Covid vaccines to target a circulating strain of the virus, while pushing for newer vaccines that provide longer-lasting protection. The FDA’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee voted unanimously in support of tweaking the shots to target an XBB strain, as well as dropping the original coronavirus strain from the formulation. (Lovelace Jr., 6/15)

Pfizer Inc. said it’s capable of making shots targeting Covid-19’s XBB.1.5 strain by the end of July if government regulators recommend it, while another version under consideration would take longer. (Griffin and Muller, 6/15)

The bivalent (two-strain) COVID-19 booster provides substantial protection against death among US adults aged 65 years and older, with no significant signs of waning for up to 6 months, concludes a study published today in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly. (Van Beusekom, 6/15)

Two new studies show COVID-19 vaccines are safe in older adults and when administered simultaneously with non-COVID vaccines. Both studies are published in Vaccine. (Soucheray, 6/15)

Confidence in the scientific community declined among U.S. adults in 2022, a major survey shows, driven by a partisan divide in views of both science and medicine that emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic. Overall, 39% of U.S. adults said they had “a great deal of confidence” in the scientific community, down from 48% in 2018 and 2021. That’s according to the General Social Survey, a long-running poll conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago that has monitored Americans’ opinions on key topics since 1972. (Burakoff, 6/15)