SAN FRANCISCO – As an infectious disease specialist, Dr. Daniel Griffin hears frequent concerns from patients about whether they’ll be able to get the new COVID vaccines. Even his relatives are worried.
Griffin, who does clinical work in Long Island, New York, said his sister-in-law is in her 40s and quite wary of long COVID, the enduring, debilitating health issues that have afflicted millions of Americans who contracted the coronavirus.
“She was worried about, ‘If I don’t get vaccinated now, will I have access in the fall?’’’ he said. “The other was, ‘If I get vaccinated now, will they not let me get vaccinated in the fall and say you’re only allowed one a year?’ A lot of people have been making decisions out of fear that they’re going to lose access to vaccines.’’
Many public health experts say that fear and confusion are a result of the COVID vaccine policies established under Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and some of them believe that’s by design.
Griffin described the Aug. 27 vaccine announcement by the Food and Drug Administration, which operates under HHS, as less an approval of the shots and more an administrative restriction of access to them.
COVID inoculations that used to be readily available at major drug stores and other outlets, often even without an appointment, now require a medical consultation for those under age 65 who don’t have an underlying condition that puts them at increased risk of severe illness.
Medical groups for women, children oppose guidance
Vaccines to protect healthy children and pregnant women are no longer recommended, despite protestations from medical organizations such as the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, among others.
AAP said kids ages 6 through 23 months “are at the highest risk for severe COVID-19’’ and should be vaccinated. ACOG pointed out COVID infections during pregnancy have been linked with “an increased risk of severe disease, adverse pregnancy outcomes and maternal death.’’
The new guidelines come at a time when COVID cases, emergency room visits and hospitalizations have been rising nationally, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, though not at alarming rates and certainly nowhere near the heights of the pandemic in its first two years.
“COVID-19 activity is increasing in many areas of the country,’’ the CDC, also under the HHS umbrella, said on its website Aug. 29.
The FDA’s decision has been panned by several former leaders of the CDC, including Dr. Richard Besser, who served as acting director in 2009 and said in a statement: “I fear that Secretary Kennedy will continue his steady march to limit who can access which life-saving vaccines.’’
This week, the governors of California, Washington and Oregon announced the formation of an alliance to devise vaccine recommendations for their states while shunning the CDC’s, accusing the agency of becoming “a political tool.’’
What to know: RFK Jr., the CDC and confusing vaccine recommendations
Abby Maxwell, right, a registered nurse in South Bend, Indiana, demonstrates what administering a vaccine to a patient would look like on June 2, 2025.
Statements erode confidence in vaccines
Kennedy, who has expressed concern for years about the efficacy and safety of vaccines, has called the COVID shots administered to more than two-thirds of the global population the “deadliest vaccine ever made.’’
Medical professionals warn those kinds of statements from someone now in charge of the nation’s public health undermine confidence in inoculations proven to be safe and effective. Kennedy also cut off nearly $500 million in funding for development of vaccines relying on mRNA, the leading technology used for COVID shots, saying it’s ineffective.
Dr. Jesse Goodman, a former chief scientific officer for the FDA and now an attending physician for infectious diseases at Georgetown University, said Americans “get confused by all these different messages’’ on vaccines.
“I’m really worried there will be people who are not vaccinated because of access or cost issues or because they’ve had doubts,’’ he said, “and some of those people are going to get hurt, and some are going to die.’’
Holly Micheletos, a family therapist in San Francisco, said she has grown frustrated by the lack of information about the COVID vaccine from the Trump administration.
In previous years, Micheletos said, the government would spread the word when a new vaccine formulation was available and she would see signs posted at drug stores.
“You would know it was time to get the new booster or whatnot,’’ she said. “Now I don’t see any communication, and I don’t even know who needs it anymore. Over 65 only? I literally feel like I’m being discouraged to get it, and I want it.’’
The National Mall in Washington, D.C., in September 2021 featured artist Suzanne Brennan Firstenberg, who uses miniature white flags to symbolize the lives lost to COVID-19 in the United States.
‘The spirit is really to not let people have the vaccines’
Kennedy and his allies argue the public can still receive the COVID inoculation if desired, but they skirt over issues of convenience, insurance coverage and cost. Health insurance companies had been covering the cost of shots recommended by the CDC, and it’s not clear what they’ll pay for now that the eligibility is more restrictive.
“The (FDA) decision does not affect access to these vaccines,’’ HHS spokesman Andrew Nixon said via e-mail. “These vaccines remain available to those who choose them in consultation with their health care provider.’’
Those consultations could present an obstacle for people who don’t have the time, means or perhaps even a regular provider to get the vaccine prescribed.
And that’s precisely the objective of the new limitations, say critics of Kennedy’s leadership at HHS, noting his long history of positions that defy established science.
“The spirit is really to not let people have the vaccines,’’ Griffin said. “They’ve created a climate of fear around giving people a wonderful intervention in vaccination.’’
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, testifies in front of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee in Washington, D.C., on May 15, 2025.
Inoculation ‘less available, less affordable’
Dr. Paul Offit, a vaccine expert and pediatrician based in Philadelphia, said Kennedy is so antagonistic to vaccines in general, he would like to take them off the market. Short of that, he’ll make them harder to get.
“He’s doing everything he can to make that vaccine less available, less affordable, less likely to be insured and possibly more feared,’’ Offit said of the COVID shot. “I think the point of this current administration is to sow doubt, to sow confusion.’’
On the day of the FDA’s announcement, Kennedy posted a statement on social media saying he had delivered on four promises:
“1. to end covid vaccine mandates. 2. to keep vaccines available to people who want them, especially the vulnerable. 3. to demand placebo-controlled trials from companies. 4. to end the emergency.’’
The federal COVID health emergency and the vaccine mandates were halted on the same day, May 11, 2023, more than 1½ years before Kennedy took office, as his own department’s website states. Whether vaccines remain readily available is highly disputed.
“Anybody should be able to reasonably choose to get this vaccine,’’ Offit said. “So when Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said, ‘I’m not going to take vaccines away from people who want them,’ he lied, because that’s exactly what he’s doing.’’
More than 250,000 hospitalizations, 30,000 deaths
According to CDC estimates, 9.8 million to 16.1 million Americans contracted COVID from Oct. 1, 2024, to June 7, 2025. That resulted in 2.4 million-3.8 million visits to see a doctor, 270,000-440,000 hospitalizations and 32,000 to 51,000 deaths.
Even if it’s rare for healthy young people to suffer severe consequences from a coronavirus infection, many doctors argue it’s still worthwhile for the vaccine to be widely and easily available, partly to reduce the chances of someone developing long COVID.
The CDC has called the condition “a significant public health threat,’’ citing national surveys in 2023 that estimated 9.5 million people had long COVID, including 300,000 children.
Vaccine policy, Goodman said, shouldn’t be based mostly on the odds of people dying from getting infected with the disease.
“There are tens of thousands of hospitalizations a year,’’ he said. “They cost people tremendous amounts of money. They stress the health care system. People who can’t afford to, miss work.’’
Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, an infectious disease expert at the University of California-San Francisco, said most of the questions he fields about the vaccines come from pregnant women worried they might not be able to get the latest version and from parents confused about the guidance for their children.
But even seniors who know they’re eligible are wondering if they’ll have to pay for the shot, making them less likely to get it, Chin-Hong said.
“I have to encourage you to get the vaccine,’’ he said, “and if you hear a rumor that somebody was charged $200 to get it, you’re not going to go even if you’re over 65 and you probably would get it covered by the official rules.’’
Joe Barnes, owner of Safe Spray Services, sprays disinfectant at Rococo restaurant as he treats and cleans the surfaces on May 15, 2020, in Oklahoma City, Okla.
‘Vaccine skeptics’ among new members of advisory panel
California is among the 34 states where pharmacists can vaccinate people before the shots are recommended by the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP).
But because ACIP is not meeting to make that decision until Sept. 18, much later than usual, residents of most of the other states will either have to wait for the committee’s approval or present a prescription to get inoculated.
That’s assuming the panel will give its thumbs-up. Kennedy fired all 17 members of ACIP in June and a few days later brought in eight new ones, some with anti-vaccine views.
Chin-Hong called the new panelists “not only vaccine skeptics but also not knowledgeable about vaccines in general or public health in general.’’
That could add to the vaccine reluctance among the hesitant.
More than 90% of U.S. adults who got COVID shots over the past year received them at pharmacies, and Offit believes the new vaccines will be available at those sites again this fall, although with quite a few more restrictions.
It’s a long way from when government officials made every effort to persuade people to get the protection vaccines offer, even well past the pandemic days.
“It’s such an uncertain time,’’ Offit said. “All the things that used to count and had weight don’t anymore. We’re just sort of in this upside-down world.’’
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: As COVID cases rise, so does confusion over access to vaccines
