LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- A new COVID-19 booster shot will soon be available in Louisville, and doctors said this one is just as important as the previous shots.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved a new bivalent booster, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is recommending its use. It will protect against the most common strains of the virus, which are the Omicron BA.4 and BA.5 variants.

For the Pfizer booster, anyone 12 and older can get the vaccine as long as the patient has already finished his or her primary series of COVID-19 vaccines and it has been at least two months since his or her last booster shot.

Those getting the Moderna booster must be at least 18.

"If it is going to be your first COVID vaccine, you would get the monovalent dose before getting this booster bivalent vaccine," said Jim Hallahan, with UK Healthcare Pharmacy Operations.

Similar to the flu shot, the COVID-19 "bivalent" booster, provides protections against multiple variants of COVID-19 and could be a yearly vaccine.

"These new lineages are what we might predict to see circulating around this fall and winter season," Hallahan said. "Ideally, it’s going to provide us with a lot better protection."

COVID-19 is still heavily present in the Louisville area. Doctors said it's appearing in disguise of allergies or even flu. Some people are even testing negative at home for days before a positive result.

Doctors said there are many reasons why the at-home tests are producing negative results several times before showing positive. At home, antigen tests are likely to deliver negative results if not done correctly or at the right time. 

"We do a PCR test, which is run through a different type of machine and is more accurate," said Lynette Sullivan, a nurse practitioner with Norton Healthcare.

The CDC said more than 1,400 people have been included in several studies of a prior tweak to the vaccine recipe targeting an earlier omicron strain named BA.1. That omicron-targeting combo shot proved safe and able to rev up virus-fighting antibodies, and European regulators on Thursday recommended using that type of booster.

Pfizer said it expected to deliver 3 million doses to vaccination sites around the country by Tuesday.

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Copyright 2022 WDRB Media. All Rights Reserved. The Associated Press contributed to this report.