The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Friday revised the emergency use authorization for Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine by shortening the period of time between receiving the initial two-dose vaccination and the booster shot by one month. For those aged 18 and older, the FDA now recommends that people receive the booster dose five months, instead of six, after the initial vaccine regimen. With the update, the FDA argued it is necessary to shorten the time period due to the spread of the highly infectious Omicron COVID-19 variant. Studies have shown the strain is able to infect fully vaccinated individuals with ease. “The country is in the middle of a wave of the highly contagious omicron variant, which spreads more rapidly than the original SARS-CoV-2 virus and other variants that have emerged,” Dr. Peter Marks, director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, said in a news release on …