Recently the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) approved the updated omicron-specific bivalent Covid booster shots. Now there are reports that the updated booster has some side effects.

Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and member of an independent advisory group to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, told CNBC Make It “We just don’t have any data on this [yet], essentially giving two vaccines in one shot — but biologically, I just wouldn’t expect the side effects, severity or the safety profile of the shots to be different from the current mRNA vaccines and boosters.”

The anticipated side effects are really exactly what would be expected to occur after the previous vaccinations.

– Dr. William Schaffner, a professor of preventive medicine in the department of health policy at Vanderbilt University Medical Center (source: Yahoo News)

There is side effect data available from the FDA and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDA) because the vaccine was approved before fully completing the clinical trial, writes CNBC Make It. “The federal agencies based their approvals off several other pieces of safety data, including evidence from the original Covid vaccines — the updated formulations are merely a tweak to those originals — and lab data on the shots’ BA.5 element in mice.”

Based on previous BA.1 clinical data, the most commonly reported side effects were pain, fatigue, headache, muscle pain, chills, joint pain, fever, and redness and swelling at the injection site.

“We should keep our eyes wide open to what side effects and adverse events might occur, and still keep in mind that this is a new product,” Offit told CNBC Make It.