As the fall respiratory season approaches and differing recommendations for children’s COVID-19 and flu shots cause confusion, who should be getting vaccinated to protect against illness?
Earlier this month, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s vaccine advisory committee, known as the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, or ACIP, voted to change recommendations for the COVID-19 vaccine.
The ACIP’s recommendations are not the final say — they must be reviewed and approved by the CDC director to become official guidance. But CDC directors have almost always accepted the recommendations.
Here’s where recommendations currently stand.
Flu shots
Guidance on the flu shot for kids is consistent across top medical groups: Children 6 months and older are generally advised to get the shot.
The CDC recommends that everyone 6 months and older get a flu vaccine every season, with rare exceptions.
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) also recommends that everyone 6 months and older without medical contradictions get vaccinated.
For pregnant women, flu shots — specifically the injection, not the nasal spray — are also recommended by both the CDC and AAP.
Protecting kids from the flu is important because infections can lead to hospitalizations and sometimes be deadly, the CDC says. During the 2023-24 flu season, for example, the CDC reported nearly 200 flu-related deaths among children in the U.S. Most of them were eligible for a vaccine but were not fully vaccinated, the CDC said.
Flu season typically starts in December and peaks in February, so the optimal time to get vaccinated is heading into the season,
doctors say. It takes about 2 weeks for protection to develop after vaccination.
COVID vaccine
For the COVID-19 vaccine, advice currently varies.
The CDC says parents of healthy children ages 6 months to 17 years old should discuss the benefits with a health care provider and “may receive” it, but the agency stops short of recommending the shot. The agency broadly recommends COVID-19 vaccines for moderately or severely immunocompromised children.
The American Academy of Pediatrics, however, recently shared vaccine recommendations that, for the first time in three decades, differ from U.S. government advice. In the guidance, the AAP is “strongly recommending” COVID-19 shots for children ages 6 months to 2 years old. For older children, shots are also advised but it’s up to parents’ discretion, the AAP said.
Other top medical groups have also shared recommendations differing from the CDC’s advice.
For example, the Infectious Diseases Society of America, a medical association representing physicians and scientists who specialize in infectious diseases, recommends the COVID-19 vaccine for everyone ages 6 months and older.
And a group of four West Coast states has joined together to issue recommendations on COVID-19 shots and other vaccines that differ from CDC guidance. The West Coast Health Alliance recommends the COVID vaccine for all children 6 months to 23 months old and those 2 to 18 years old with risk factors or who have never been vaccinated.
The announcement was made last week in a joint statement from Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek, Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson, California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Hawaii Gov. Josh Green, all Democrats, saying they were putting safety before politics.
In the Northeast, New York and its neighbors created the Northeast Public Health Collaborative, with Gov. Kathy Hochul calling it a rebuke to Washington’s retreat from science. The voluntary coalition includes New York state, New York City, Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island.
“Every resident will have access to the COVID vaccine, no exceptions,” Hochul said in a statement, which advises vaccinations for children 6 months to 18 years old.
CDC advisory panel’s proposed COVID changes
The CDC’s advisory committee, the ACIP, has undergone changes in recent months, with all new members picked by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is known for raising doubts about vaccines.
In their latest meeting, the ACIP voted for people to make individual, informed decisions about COVID vaccination, and it declined to specifically recommend COVID vaccination. This is a change from current guidance, since it drops recommendations for even children at high risk.
The updated recommendations, which are not yet considered official but are expected to be soon, would include the following for children:
- Individuals 6 months to 64 years: Vaccination based on individual-based decision-making — with an emphasis that the risk-benefit of vaccination is most favorable for individuals who are at an increased risk for severe COVID-19 disease and lowest for individuals who are not at an increased risk, according to the CDC list of COVID-19 risk factors.
Dr. Paul Offit — a vaccine researcher at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and a former government adviser who has sparred with Kennedy for years — said that with this proposed change, “the good news is anyone can get the vaccine.” But “the bad news is that no one is encouraged to get it even if you’re in a high-risk group,” he recently told The Associated Press.
Varying advice has already caused confusion for parents.
Dr. Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, said he expects confusion around the COVID vaccine due to the panel’s recent vote.
“What I think it means is that people are going to be uncertain whether or not the COVID-19 vaccine is a benefit to them,” he told CBS News on Friday.
Dr. Céline Gounder, CBS News medical contributor and editor-at-large for public health at KFF Health News, says there’s “a lot of noise out there” when it comes to vaccines, but advises parents to “stick the course” and talk to your doctor about making sure children get all their necessary vaccinations.
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