FDA to limit COVID shots

The Trump administration said Tuesday it will limit approval for seasonal COVID-19 shots to seniors and others at high risk, raising questions about whether some people who want a vaccine this fall will be able to get one.

Top officials for the Food and Drug Administration laid out new requirements for access to updated COVID shots, saying they’d continue to use a streamlined approach to make them available to adults 65 and older as well as children and younger adults with at least one high-risk health problem.

But the FDA framework, published Tuesday in the New England Journal of Medicine, urges companies to conduct large, lengthy studies before tweaked vaccines can be approved for healthier people. In the paper and a subsequent online webcast, the FDA’s top vaccine official said still, more than 100 million Americans still should qualify for what he termed a booster under the new guidance.

Dr. Vinay Prasad described the new approach as a “compromise” that will allow vaccinations in high-risk groups while generating new data about whether they still benefit healthier people.

Home Depot to hold the line on prices

Home Depot doesn’t expect to raise prices because of tariffs, saying it has spent years diversifying the sources for the goods on its shelves.

Billy Bastek, executive vice president of merchandising, said during a conference call Tuesday that Home Depot’s suppliers have shifted sourcing across several countries and that the company doesn’t expect any single country outside of the U.S. will represent more than 10% of its purchases 12 months from now.

“We don’t see broad based price increases for our customers at all going forward,” he said.

—Boston Herald Wire Services