CDC recommends Covid vaccines for babies in new guidance that could anger health chief RFK Jr
The CDC today doubled down on its recommendation that babies should get the Covid vaccine.
In a new analysis on 137,000 Americans, agency researchers found this year’s Covid vaccine lowered the risk of being hospitalized with the virus by 33 percent.
The report also fund that the shot was 45 percent effective among vulnerable adults and 40 percent effective among those aged 65 years or older.
The team of 55 scientists concluded: ‘[This] supports current CDC… recommendations that all persons aged six months and over receive a 2024 to 2025 Covid vaccine dose.’
In a separate report also published today, the agency found the flu vaccine was up to 78 percent effective against hospitalization in children and up to 55 percent effective among adults.
Flu is particularly deadly for children and infants but Covid vaccination for children has been more controversial because this group faces such a vanishingly low risk of hospitalization and death from that virus.
CDC data shows just 12.1 percent of children under 18s received the updated Covid vaccine in 2024/25.
The CDC has doubled down on its recommendation for children to receive the updated Covid vaccine in 2024 to 2025, despite the group having a vanishingly low risk from the virus (stock)
Between January 2020 and June 2023, there were 1,642 Covid deaths reported in children under 18 out of 1.1m fatalities linked to the virus nationwide.
America’s recommendation makes it an outlier on Covid vaccines. Other countries like the UK only recommend boosters for vulnerable children with chronic health problems.
But experts say this difference in recommendations is needed to ensure that US health insurance companies cover the shots.
The advice comes despite new health chief Robert F. Kennedy Junior making a number of key vaccine maneuvers in his first month.
He has paused a $200million Biden-era contract to develop a new Covid vaccine due to safety concerns.
And an annual FDA meeting to decide on the flu vaccine for the next season was canceled this week without warning.
The meeting decides the flu strain the vaccine targets, with this undertaken early to allow pharmaceutical companies time to prepare and manufacture the doses.
RFK Jr. has expressed concerns over the Covid vaccine, while other figures in the health administration have also detailed reservations about giving the vaccine to children, including Dr Marty Makary, nominee to head the FDA, and Dr Mehmet Oz, for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
A source at the CDC told DailyMail.com the Trump administration was aware that today’s paper was being published.
In the new CDC analysis, published in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Reports, the CDC analyzed data from the VISION database — based on ER admission reports from 241 hospitals in eight states — and the IVY database — based on ER admission reports from 26 hospitals in 20 states.
From VISION, researchers compared data on 137,543 patients who were hospitalized for respiratory diseases.
This included 10,459 patients who tested positive for Covid upon admission, and 137,543 patients who had Covid-like symptoms but tested negative for the disease.
The above shows Covid vaccination uptake among adults aged 18 years or older during this year’s and last year’s flu season
And the above shows vaccine uptake among children aged six months to 17 years old
Medical records were accessed to establish which patients had been vaccinated against Covid in 2024.
Of the 10,459 Covid patients, a total of just 914 (nine percent) had received the latest Covid vaccine.
Among over-65s, the analysis included 26,219 patients — including 2,248 patients who tested positive and 23,971 patients who had Covid-like symptoms.
All the patients had been vaccinated at least seven days before hospital admission, and tested positive for the virus between ten days before and 72 hours after hospital admission.
Writing in their conclusion, the scientists said: ‘These findings demonstrate that vaccination with a 2024 to 2025 Covid vaccine dose provides additional protection against Covid-associated ER encounters and hospitalizations compared with not receiving a 2024 to 2025 dose.’
In June, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) at the CDC recommended that all persons aged six months and over receive the updated Covid booster shot — designed to target Omicron variant JN.1.
The roll-out began in October last year, but uptake has been sluggish — with latest data showing that 23.1 percent of adults have now received the new dose.
Among children, or those under 18 years old, data suggests that 12.1 percent have received the latest shot.
The above graph shows the deaths and positivity rate from Covid recorded nationwide since December 2022
For the flu vaccine, 45.3 percent of adults have received the shot so far, while among children 45.8 percent have got the shot.
It comes after the FDA was reported to have scrapped a meeting to advise on vaccination schedules for the next flu season.
Federal health officials notified members of the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC) of the cancellation in an email Wednesday afternoon without offering an explanation.
The committee typically meets to start selecting the flu strain to be targeted by next year’s vaccine, with the selection happening earlier to give pharmaceutical companies time to design and manufacture the shots.
