Anti-vaccine advocate and health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has unilaterally revoked federal recommendations for healthy children and pregnant people to get COVID-19 booster shots.
The abrupt change, announced on social media, could make it yet more difficult, if not impossible, for healthy children and pregnant people to have access to the seasonal vaccines, which have proven safe and effective at protecting both of those groups from severe illness.
In a regulatory meeting last week, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention epidemiologist Ruth Link-Gelles presented 2023–2024 data showing that COVID-19 boosters effectively protected children and teens from needing urgent or emergency care due to COVID-19 (slide 36). In children 9 months to 4 years old in that season, the boosters provided 52 percent added effectiveness over background immunity from past vaccination and illness. The boosters were 64 percent effective in kids ages 5 to 17.