Weve seen second COVID-19 boosters recommended for older adults and people with underlying health conditions but what about the general population? Well, its looking like a new booster shot will be recommended in the coming months.

Earlier this summer, the Food and Drug Administrations Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee met to discuss the next round of boosters, and voted in favor of updated shots to be distributed as boosters in the fall.

The Biden administration announced earlier this month that the new shots designed to more effectively fight off omicron variants are expected to roll out in September. The U.S. has purchased 171 million doses of Moderna and Pfizers bivalent boosters, which target both the original COVID-19 strain and omicron, particularly the now-dominant BA.4 and BA.5 variants.

The U.K. also recently approved an omicron-targeting Moderna vaccine, and is the first country to approve an omicron-specific booster.

Both Pfizer and Modernas updated booster shots offer a strong immune response against omicron and its subvariants. The preliminary results found an increase in antibodies and added protection.

Infectious disease experts generally agree that developing a booster strategy is a complicated task.

The solution isnt just throwing vaccines at everybody. Its actually having a meaningful understanding of what are the goals of the vaccine program and what can we expect the vaccines to do, Isaac Bogoch , an infectious disease physician and scientist at the University of Toronto, told HuffPost in June.

Some people should still get a booster before the rollout of the bivalent shots

Bogoch said in order to determine if, when and how boosters will be needed, its crucial to first look at the goals. In the case of these new bivalent boosters, the goal is to target the soaring number of infections caused by the latest COVID variants.

The current boosters have waning protection against infection and onward transmission, Bogoch explained, but they continue to be safe and very effective at preventing severe outcomes like hospitalizations and death.

But certain populations should be boosted with the current shots instead of waiting.

The effectiveness of vaccines varies between people. Immunocompromised individuals and older peoples antibody levels wane earlier, which makes these people strong candidates for booster doses, said Arjun Venkatesh , a Yale Medicine emergency medicine doctor and associate professor at Yale School of Medicine. Thats why those who are over 60 or immunocompromised were eligible for a second round of booster shots earlier this year.

The reason we want to boost older adults first is because in many ways, the vaccine their first two doses didnt work as well as it worked in younger people, Venkatesh said. That second booster has helped at-risk groups be as vaccinated as healthier individuals who got only two or three doses.

Venkatesh also believes we will continue to see booster campaigns targeting at-risk populations more often than blanket booster recommendations. Its not uncommon for booster campaigns to roll out for select groups we already do this for shingles, pneumonia and flu shots.