\n<\/p>\n
There is a lot of confusion about Covid vaccines this year.<\/p>\n
In late August, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced that it had rescinded emergency use authorizations (a tool that allows the FDA to expedite the availability of certain medications) for Covid-19 vaccines. It also said it had approved updated versions of the Covid-19 vaccine, but only for certain groups.<\/p>\n
New restrictions limit shots to adults 65 and older and those with at least one underlying condition that puts them at higher risk for severe Covid \u2013 a significant shift from previous guidelines, which approved Covid vaccines for all Americans that are six months and older. The move comes as a new Covid variant known as XFG or \u201cStratus\u201d is spreading in the US.<\/p>\n
Robert F Kennedy Jr, the US health secretary and prominent vaccine skeptic, praised the FDA in a post on X, saying that the framework ended Biden-era vaccine \u201cmandates\u201d while still keeping \u201cvaccines available to those who want them\u201d.<\/p>\n
FDA commissioner, Dr Marty Makary, echoed this, writing in his own post: \u201c100% of the adults in this country can still get the vaccine if they choose.\u201d<\/p>\n
But access probably won\u2019t be that straightforward, say experts.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have plenty of Covid circulating in the US,\u201d says Dr Adam Ratner, a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) committee on infectious disease. \u201cThe more people who choose not to vaccinate their kids and not to vaccinate themselves, the more it will spread.\u201d He adds that he worries that fewer people getting vaccinated could lead to \u201clarger and more severe outbreaks\u201d.<\/p>\n
Below, what we currently know about the availability of Covid-19 vaccines in the US in 2025.<\/p>\n
Kennedy announced that the FDA had approved Moderna vaccines for those six months and older, Pfizer vaccines for those five years old and older, and Novavax vaccines for those 12 years old and older.<\/p>\n
Although administration health officials claim that any adult who wants a vaccine will be able to get one, experts say that is unlikely to be the case in practice.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is misleading,\u201d wrote Dr Jake Scott, a clinical associate professor of infectious diseases at Stanford Medicine, in a reply to Makary\u2019s tweet. He went on to outline barriers the new restrictions have imposed: \u201cInsurance won\u2019t cover off-label use ($150+ costs), pharmacies can\u2019t administer [vaccines] without CDC recommendations you haven\u2019t issued, and you eliminated Pfizer for under-5s entirely.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2018Available\u2019 with barriers isn\u2019t accessible,\u201d he concluded.<\/p>\n
Scott told the Guardian that the FDA\u2019s announcement \u201ccauses so much chaos and confusion\u201d.<\/p>\n
Under the FDA\u2019s newly announced rules, people under 65 must be considered \u201chigh risk\u201d to qualify.<\/p>\n
It is unclear whether official CDC immunization guidelines will be the same. The CDC\u2019s advisory committee on immunization practices (ACIP), which develops recommendations for the use of vaccines, will meet in September and discuss Covid vaccine policy.<\/p>\n
Graphic with three lines of text that say, in bold, \u2018Well Actually\u2019, then \u2018Read more on living a good life in a complex world,\u2019 then a pinkish-lavender pill-shaped button with white letters that say \u2018More from this section\u2019<\/p>\n
But there is concern among the medical community about the ACIP\u2019s upcoming recommendations. In June, Kennedy fired all 17 sitting members of the panel, and announced eight new members, many of whom are vocal vaccine skeptics.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of concern about this ACIP and our ability to get science-based recommendations from them,\u201d says Ratner.<\/p>\n
Under the FDA\u2019s new rules, adults under 65 qualify for a Covid vaccine if they have \u201cat least one underlying condition that puts them at high risk for severe outcomes from Covid-19\u201d.<\/p>\n
But what qualifies as an underlying condition is unclear. \u201cThe definitive answer to that has not been put out by the FDA or the CDC yet,\u201d says Dr Richard Ricciardi, a practicing nurse practitioner and associate dean for clinical practice and community engagement at the George Washington University School of Nursing. \u201cSo who qualifies for a vaccine is still a little nebulous.\u201d<\/p>\n
A previous list put out by the CDC in February 2025 lists 22 qualifying conditions, including asthma, cancer, diabetes types 1 and 2, HIV, mental health conditions including depression, obesity, physical inactivity and smoking.<\/p>\n
There is also reason to believe that the CDC\u2019s new list will not be the same. Although the previous list includes pregnancy as an underlying condition, Kennedy announced in May that Covid vaccines were no longer recommended for healthy pregnant women and children.<\/p>\n
This reversal was made without the usual outside input by professional medical organizations, and in June, the AAP and dozens of other major medical associations signed an open letter opposing this new policy.<\/p>\n
\u201cPregnancy\u2019s a risk factor for a lot of reasons,\u201d says Ricciardi. \u201cYour lungs are compressed, your immune system changes dramatically and you don\u2019t fight off infections as well as you would when you\u2019re not pregnant.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ricciardi adds that pregnant women have safely been getting Covid vaccines for years. \u201cAnd now they\u2019re not able to,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
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Practical advice, expert insights and answers to your questions about how to live a good life<\/p>\n
Privacy Notice: <\/strong>Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.<\/span><\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Since the CDC no longer recommends Covid-19 vaccines for healthy children, there is confusion among parents and healthcare providers about whether children will be able to get Covid vaccines or other routine vaccines, says Ratner.<\/p>\n The new guidelines are at odds with the AAP\u2019s recommended vaccine schedule, Ratner says. The AAP\u2019s position is that \u201cinfants and children 6 months through 23 months of age are at high risk for severe Covid-19\u201d and that all of those within this group who do not have any contraindications should be vaccinated against the disease.<\/p>\n \u201cFor older kids, a risk-based approach is reasonable,\u201d says Ratner. The group suggests that any child with high risk factors should be vaccinated, and any parents who want their children \u2013 high risk or not \u2013 to get vaccinated should be able to do so.<\/p>\n Going forward, parents will have to consult with pediatricians to determine whether their child gets a vaccine. If they have a healthy child, the pediatrician may have to administer the vaccine off-label (meaning an unapproved use of a drug) and there is no guarantee doctors will be comfortable doing this.<\/p>\n \u201cI wish I had a good answer to how people are going to access vaccines in the coming weeks and months,\u201d says Ratner. \u201cI guess we will find out more, but it\u2019s a frustrating and confusing time for all of us.\u201d<\/p>\n In theory, it is possible for adults who do not qualify as high-risk to get off-label prescriptions. But Scott says he suspects there\u2019s going to be a lot of hesitation among doctors to \u201cprescribe something off-label that they may be liable for\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cCan you go to Canada and get it? Yeah, you probably could,\u201d says Ricciardi. \u201cBut why would we have to go to another country to get vaccinated?\u201d<\/p>\n During the 2024-2025 cold and flu season, nearly 90% of people who received a Covid shot received it in a pharmacy, according to CDC data.<\/p>\n But pharmacists aren\u2019t sure what the 2025-2026 season will look like.<\/p>\n \u201cPharmacists are a little bit anxious because if the ACIP takes on and recommends the same guidelines the FDA has approved, a lot of patients will be unable to get a Covid-19 vaccine,\u201d says Allison Hill, the director of professional affairs at the American Pharmacists Association.<\/p>\n Pharmacy regulations also vary from state to state. Some states have their own statutes, while others follow ACIP recommendations. And some states allow pharmacists to administer vaccines that are off-label, while others do not.<\/p>\n This confusing tangle of rules has already led two of the country\u2019s biggest pharmacy chains, CVS and Walgreens, to severely limit how and where they are providing vaccines. A spokesperson for CVS said on Friday that the chain would continue to offer vaccines in 34 states, require prescriptions to administer them in 13 states and the District of Columbia, and stop offering Covid vaccines altogether in Massachusetts, Nevada and New Mexico.<\/p>\n The spokesperson said this was a result of \u201cthe current regulatory environment\u201d, and that the lists \u201cmay change at any time\u201d.<\/p>\n Patients may be able to get vaccines at their doctor\u2019s office, but that\u2019s not guaranteed.<\/p>\n Even if someone is at high risk, getting a prescription for a vaccine may not be easy. \u201cIn the US, a lot of people don\u2019t have insurance,\u201d says Scott. \u201cAnd a lot of people who have insurance don\u2019t have primary care doctors, and they don\u2019t get much medical attention.\u201d<\/p>\n Requiring people to jump through hoops will only further deter people from getting vaccines, says Hill.<\/p>\n \u201cWe know that patients, when they come into the pharmacy and you talk to them about a vaccine, they really need to get that vaccine then and there,\u201d she says. \u201cIf you have to wait on a prescription, you lose the patient.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" There is a lot of confusion about Covid vaccines this year. In late August, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced that it had rescinded emergency use authorizations (a tool that allows the FDA to expedite the availability of certain medications) for Covid-19 vaccines. It also said it had approved updated versions of the Covid-19<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18829,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[5333,1600,78],"class_list":{"0":"post-18828","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-social-issues","8":"tag-covid","9":"tag-fall","10":"tag-vaccines"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18828","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18828"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18828\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/18829"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Can children get the Covid vaccine?<\/strong><\/h2>\n
What if you want a Covid vaccine but don\u2019t qualify for one under the new guidelines?<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Where can you get a Covid vaccine this year?<\/strong><\/h2>\n