The U.S. will not include a bivalent composition to its next COVID-19 booster this fall, opting to include only the current monovalent strain. I think that’s a great move.

This single-strain – or, monovalent – vaccine would drop protection against the original strain of the virus that emerged in China in late 2019, a version that experts don’t expect to return and whose continued inclusion in vaccines may contribute to lower efficacy against newer strains.

Members of the FDA’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee voted unanimously on Thursday that the new vaccine should protect against just one strain of the SARS-CoV-2 virus – a departure from the currently available bivalent vaccines.