Could COVID Boosters Be Delayed This Fall Because Of The Trump Admin? Experts Weigh In.

Every fall since 2021, new COVID-19 shots have been available to protect folks from the latest COVID-19 strains. This is because, just like the flu, COVID-19 mutates quickly and vaccines need to be updated to ensure the season’s shot is targeting the right virus strain. This happens for both the flu shot and the COVID-19 shot, which is why new jabs are available roughly every September.

But in recent weeks, the future of the anticipated fall COVID-19 boosters has been questioned. There are rumors of a potential delay in distribution due to testing changes that many experts call unnecessary, and potential changes to the recommendations regarding who actually needs the shots. This is all part of the Trump administration’s major changes to health care infrastructure.

It’s worth knowing that COVID booster shot uptake in the U.S. has been very low, but the shots remain an important protection measure for everyone, especially for older adults and immunocompromised people who are more at risk of death or hospitalization from a COVID infection.

While the future of COVID boosters is not clear right now (so, don’t panic), experts say a delay in vaccine availability or narrowing of eligibility could be dangerous. Here’s why:

As mentioned above, COVID shots are updated every season (just like flu shots), so they best protect against the virus strain that’s currently circulating.

“The plans were, as we did last year, to update the COVID vaccine to keep up with the changing COVID virus. This has been done very efficiently because we have enough information about the vaccines and how they work so that we don’t have to do a prospective clinical trial with the influenza vaccine, and we have not, at least in the past, had to do that with COVID vaccine,” said Dr. William Schaffner, a professor of preventive medicine in the department of health policy at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee.

But it’s now been suggested by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Marty Makary that there isn’t enough data on COVID vaccines and that additional testing may be required before the shot is available. “To do that with the COVID vaccine, I think that notion would be disputed by most of the people in the vaccine community, including myself,” Schaffner noted.

This is problematic because additional trials and testing take more time, so by the time the testing is done and analyzed, we could be way past the optimal time for COVID vaccination, which is the fall, he said.

More, a certain kind of testing that RFK Jr. is calling for, known as placebo testing, goes against medical ethical standards when it comes to the COVID booster (plus, the original COVID shot was already placebo tested).

“It does not meet our ethical standards to enroll people into a trial and say, we’re going to give half of you nothing, withhold a vaccine from you, and the other people are going to get a vaccine when we already know the vaccine works, and we’ve got years worth of data to support that,” said Dr. Jodie Guest, the senior vice chair of the department of epidemiology at Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health in Atlanta.

“So that violates our human subject research ethics, and ultimately, it will delay vaccine for everyone,” Guest noted.

“Now, if the COVID vaccine were to be delayed or unavailable … that would put a large segment of the population at risk of COVID,” Schaffner said.

This is particularly the case for people over 65 and those who are immunocompromised, added Guest. “It will mean more hospitalizations. It will certainly mean more sickness. And we know that people in those categories are more likely to need hospital support if they do get COVID and get sick,” said Guest.

Deaths could increase, too. This past January when COVID levels were higher, there were nearly 1,000 deaths each week in the United States, added Guest. And currently, more than than 6,000 people have died of COVID in the U.S. in the past three months, said Katrine Wallace, an epidemiologist and assistant professor at the University of Illinois Chicago.

“A lot of people are not at risk for those severe complications from COVID, but there are a lot of people who are, and we are all going to know and love people who are in those higher-risk categories. And we really need to be thinking about that,” Guest said.

What’s also unclear is who would be eligible for a new COVID shot this fall. Meaning, the recommendation guidelines could change.

The committee that decides who’s eligible for the COVID vaccine (and any immunization, for that matter) is debating whether the COVID vaccine recommendations should stay as-is (everyone 6 months and older can get the jab) or if the recommendations should focus on high-risk people instead, Schaffner said. He noted that some other countries handle COVID vaccinations this way, and the committee is looking at that data.

Guest said that with less severe disease and complications from COVID, she’s not surprised that there is talk of changing vaccine recommendations.

“I don’t think we should restrict who is eligible for COVID vaccine boosters, but I do think we should be prioritizing who we want to make sure get them. And that’s a very common thing to do,” Guest said.

Once again, it’s unclear whether the vaccine recommendations will change at all, but if they do, Wallace said, she’s concerned about what that would mean for health insurance coverage for those who want the vaccine but aren’t eligible since health insurance doesn’t cover things you aren’t eligible for.

“So, that would be a problem for some people who want it,” Wallace added.

“There’s also the issue of long COVID, right?” Wallace said. “We have post-COVID conditions that happen to young people. That’s not something that only happens to the elderly or people with pre-existing conditions.”

“Anybody can get long COVID, and it’s really hard to predict who’s going to get it,” Wallace said. One thing that does decrease the likelihood of long COVID is the COVID vaccine, which is concerning if recommendations are changed to exclude some folks.

The current conversations from the leaders at Health and Human Services, the FDA and more are only sowing distrust in the vaccines.

“It’s making people question if they really need them or not. And we want to ask questions appropriately all the time in science, but we don’t want to intentionally sow distrust,” Guest said.

“We want to be really careful about how we’re eroding the way people think about it, and how important these vaccines have been, and how remarkable they have been in saving our lives,” she noted.

“All of these conversations are going to discourage the uptake of vaccines … the current conversations about questioning the need for the vaccines and changing the way they’re testing them, or what they might require, suggests that things were not done correctly originally, and that’s not accurate,” Guest added.

“And it’s going to sow further distrust in the vaccines, and that is going to be a very unfortunate outcome,” Guest said.

“I would just reiterate that we have now given the available vaccines against COVID in the millions upon millions of doses around the world,” Schaffner said.

“Put aside the notion that they are ‘new’ or ‘experimental’ — no, they’re not. They have been studied as carefully as any other vaccine that was ever used around the world,” he added.

Regardless of any fall COVID shot changes, wearing a mask in crowded spaces, washing your hands and staying home when you are sick remain the best ways to keep yourself and others protected from COVID-19. It’s also a good idea to test before gatherings, particularly if you’re going to be around high-risk folks, Wallace said.

Schaffner added that if you are at high risk of severe disease or take care of someone who is, you can consider getting another COVID shot this spring or summer (before the new fall shots come out) for additional protection. If you’re considering getting another COVID shot, it’s best to talk to your doctor for guidance.