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Biotechnology company Novavax announced on Friday that its Covid-19 vaccine has been authorized for emergency use by the U.S Food and Drug Administration for adolescents between the ages of 12 and 17. ... Having more vaccine options for adults and children will “hopefully help increase vaccination rates, particularly as we prepare for ongoing surges of Covid-19 with the start of fall and the back-to-school season,” Stanley C. Erck, president and CEO of Novavax, said in a statement. (8/20)

The vaccine was authorized for adults in July. With the latest emergency use authorization, it also will be available as a two-dose primary series for ages 12 to 17. In this age group, “overall, the clinical efficacy of the vaccine is around 80%,” said Silvia Taylor, Novavax’s senior vice president global corporate affairs. The vaccine has shown 90% overall efficacy in adults. (Howard, 8/20)

Newly updated Covid booster shots designed to target omicron’s BA.5 subvariant should be available within the next three weeks. That begs an important question: Who’s going to be eligible to get them? The short answer: Anyone ages 12 and up who has completed a primary vaccination series, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention spokesperson tells CNBC Make It. It’s unlikely to matter whether you’ve received any other booster doses or not before, the spokesperson says — but if you’re unvaccinated, you won’t eligible for the updated formula until you complete a primary series with the existing Covid vaccines. (Constantino, 8/20)

In the U.S., modified Covid-19 booster shots are unlikely to be cleared for several more weeks because health authorities decided in late June they wanted modified vaccines to target different Omicron subvariants than those rolling out in other countries. As a result, the makers of the leading Covid-19 vaccines—Moderna Inc. and Pfizer Inc. with its partner BioNTech SE—got a later start producing the new shots that are planned for the U.S.  (Loftus, 8/21)

The underwhelming results for the bivalent vaccine are probably due to a phenomenon known as immune imprinting, says microbiologist John Moore at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York City. By now, much of the population has either been vaccinated or infected with an earlier variant of SARS-CoV-2. The immune system has been trained to remember this variant — and a dose of vaccine, even one with Omicron-specific components, will tend to boost those earlier immunological memories. The degree of Omicron-specific response will be relatively small, says Moore. (Ledford, 8/19)

A federal judge has dismissed a complaint from a group of health care workers who said they were unfairly discriminated against by Maine’s COVID-19 vaccine requirement. The plaintiffs sued Democratic Gov. Janet Mills and other Maine officials along with a group of health care organizations in the state. The workers argued that the vaccine mandate violated their right to free exercise of religion because it did not provide an exemption for religious beliefs. (Whittle, 8/19)

KHN: Grassroots Work Leads To Vaccination Success In Georgia Refugee Community

Naw Mu Chaw had questions about the possible side effects of a covid-19 vaccine. Chaw, a recent refugee from Myanmar, received medical care at a community health center near her home in Clarkston, Georgia, a city of about 14,000 people. Her English is limited, but the center has an interpreter to translate health information into her native language, Burmese. (Rocha, 8/22)