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\"CDC data indicate that those who are up to date on their vaccines have a 13-fold lower risk of dying from COVID compared to those with no vaccination, and a three-fold lower dose of dying than those who only had one booster compared to two. So this is a remarkable opportunity to improve our life expectancy and reduce the toll of mortality in our population,\" Califf said.

Unlike the original vaccines and boosters, these new shots will not go through a lengthy clinical trial process where thousands of Americans are dosed with the vaccines to test their safety and long-term effectiveness. However, federal health officials stress that these new shots will still be just as safe as the original vaccines because the underlying vaccine platform, mRNA, is the same, and has been through many varying clinical trials.

Part of that review was an evaluation of a clinical study of a different updated booster shot that vaccine companies had made during an earlier omicron wave. The clinical trial of that booster shot, which targeted the BA.1 variant and the original strain of COVID, was considered relevant enough to the bivalent vaccines targeting the BA.4/BA.5 variant and the original strain of omicron.

\"PHOTO:
Rogelio V. Solis/AP, FILE
PHOTO: In this Feb. 8, 2022, file photo, a Jackson, Miss., resident receives a Pfizer booster shot from a nurse at a vaccination site.
>

Officials also said that the decision not to use time-consuming clinical trials for each new shot is a strategic move, in an effort to keep vaccines up to date with the rapidly evolving variants -- a process that will likely mimic how the flu vaccine is altered each year.

\"If we waited for all the proof to come in, the wave will have already passed us by and the damage will have been done,\" Califf said.

\"It's fair for people to raise questions. But this really is the best consensus that we have among the experts that this is the best way to go,\" he added.

Marks also repeatedly defended the data FDA used to make this authorization -- clinical trial data on a bivalent vaccine that targeted a different omicron subvariant and the original COVID-19 strain, making it very similar to this booster shot that targets the BA.4 and 5 subvariant along with the original COVID-19 strain -- as well as real world data of millions of people who have gotten the mRNA vaccines and boosters globally.

\"I think we're pretty confident that what we have is very similar to the situation that we've done in the past with influenza strain changes where we don't do clinical studies for them in the United States,\" Marks said.

\"We know from the way the vaccine works, and from the data that we have, that we can predict how well our vaccine will be working,\" he added.

ABC News' Anne Flaherty contributed to this report.

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