Lat­est Covid-19 shots are al­most ready: Why is the US au­tho­riz­ing a dif­fer­ent boost­er than the rest of the world?

The US FDA lat­er this week will au­tho­rize the lat­est weapon in the ever-shift­ing bat­tle against Covid-19, set­ting up an­oth­er na­tion­al cam­paign to get the free shots in­to arms ahead of win­ter.

But the de­ci­sion comes with some dra­ma (as each of the pri­or au­tho­riza­tions has) be­cause this newest boost­er is not on­ly the first bi­va­lent vac­cine for Covid in the US, but al­so ar­rives with­out hu­man da­ta, and it’s a dif­fer­ent boost­er from what oth­er high-in­come coun­tries are au­tho­riz­ing.

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