The Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday announced new Covid-19 Federal Vaccination Recommendations for new restrictions on how millions of Americans will be able to reach shots, as several states are facing late summer peaks in coronavirus cases.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Secretary of Health and Human Services, a long -time vaccine skeptic, described new rules in social media on Wednesday. The Department has officially canceled the emergency permit, which allowed the vaccines to be widely available as they first entered the market in 2020.
“American people demanded science, security and common sense. This system provides all three,” Kennedy wrote.
Some public health experts have firmly disagreed with the step, claiming that people will find it harder to defend against a virus, which still causes more than 100 deaths in the US every week.
Who can get vaccines now?
The most important choice of new guidelines is that most people who want vaccides can still get it. However, there are important new protocols that mean that different American groups will have different rules of how they can first reach vaccines as they have become widely available. Here are the specific rules for different groups.
Seniors: The rules have not changed to anyone who is 65 years old or older. They can still get any of the possible vaccines from the same places they used to be.
Adults and children aged 5 to 64: The most significant change in new guidelines is that now unscrupulous individuals are divided into high -risk and non -high -risk categories when it comes to how they can reach vaccines.
Anyone with a basic health condition that increases the risk of their severe infection or death from Covides can still receive a vaccine from the pharmacy, doctors’ office or other vaccine. The list of conditions that has been involved in a high -risk category includes chronic lung disease, heart disease, diabetes, chronic kidney disease, immunity conditions and obesity.
Those who do not have the basic state of health can now receive a vaccine after consulting your doctor. Pharmacy and other vaccination sites can no longer present a shot for those who are not at high risk in the pool.
Young children: The end of an emergency permission means that only one shot, a Modern SpikeVax vaccine, is available to children under 5 years. Spikevax is only confirmed by children with basic health. There is no longer a Covid vaccine that is not at high risk for children under 5 years of age, although doctors may, in some cases, decide to provide a “no label” shot.
How did medical experts react?
Some of the brightest medical groups in the country have criticized new vaccine guidelines on how to create what they think are unnecessary obstacles to rescue preventive care.
“The FDA has made a decision that is completely contrary to the basis of evidence, severely damaging the confidence in scientific policy and dangerously restricting vaccine access by eliminating millions of Americans in order to protect and increase the risk of heavy results from Covido,” the Society of Communicable Diseases (IDSA) said Wednesday.
The president of the American Academy of Pediatrics called new rules “very worrying” and said “any obstacle to the Covidid-19 creates dangerous vulnerability of children and their families.”
Kennedy said that despite new restrictions, the vaccine “is available to all patients who choose to consult their doctors.”
However, critics say that this may not be completely true. More than 100 million Americans do not have access to the primary health service provider, which they will need to see to get a shot if they are not considered high. It is also not guaranteed that all doctors will decide to provide an off label for healthy patients or that the ban will cover the vaccine costs in the cases, IDSA said. There are also questions about how other vaccination sites will confirm that someone has a high risk condition that can get a shot outside the doctor’s office.
What is happening now with Covid?
The FDA said he had chosen to update his vaccine guidelines because the threat of the virus was greatly reduced and Covid became a “controlled” public health challenge.
It is true that the worst days of pandemic have long since ended, but the virus is still threatened, especially in the medically vulnerable. According to disease control and prevention centers, more than 14,000 people have died of Covidide -related diseases until 2025. The number of cases of Covidides across the country has increased in recent weeks, prompted by the new version of the virus Stratus.
Experts from FDA and other health organizations continue to say that vaccines provide strong virus protection.