Public Health

COVID-19 Booster No Longer Recommended for Healthy Children, Pregnant People

Kate Young

On Tuesday May 27, 2025, Robert F. Kennedy Jr, secretary of the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, announced in a post on X that healthy children and pregnant people will no longer be recommended to receive the COVID-19 booster vaccine.

“I couldn’t be more pleased to announce that as of today, the COVID vaccine for healthy children and healthy pregnant women has been removed from the CDC recommended immunization schedule,” he said in the video post.1

This announcement comes just a week after the FDA announced that it will limit access to COVID-19 vaccines to individuals aged 65 years or older and those who are high risk.2

According to data presented in the CDC’s April 2025 Update, children and adolescents made up about 4% of COVID-19 associated hospitalizations during 2024 to 2025, with infants younger than 6 months having the highest rate of hospitalizations. Among children eligible for vaccines, those aged 6 months to 5 years were at the highest risk for COVID-19 related hospitalizations. From July 2023 to March 2024 about 1 in 5 children and adolescents who were hospitalized due to COVID-19 were admitted to the intensive care unit. Less than 5% of the children hospitalized that were eligible for the vaccine had received the most recently recommended COVID-19 vaccine.3

data from CDC

“I think the biggest problem with not recommending the COVID vaccine, and not having the CDC review this decision utilizing their usual evidence-based approach, is that it throws this into a difficult spiral in terms of having to walk this back later for specific populations that definitely would achieve significant benefit from the vaccine,” John Harrington, MD, pediatrician and vice president of quality/safety and clinical integration at Children’s Hospital of The King’s Daughters in Norfolk, VA, told Consultant360 in response to this announcement. “This would include pregnant mothers, immunocompromised individuals, and young infants who are naïve to COVID exposure.”

Despite public concerns that COVID-19 vaccination could impact pregnancy, a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2021 found that mRNA COVID-19 vaccines are safe in pregnant individuals and are not associated with negative maternal, pregnancy, and infant outcomes.4 Another 2021 study indicated that while pregnant people are at higher risk for severe illness and death from COVID-19 infection as well as adverse pregnancy outcomes like preterm birth, the COVID-19 vaccination did not pose a safety concern for pregnant people or their infants. The study authors highlighted the need to expand access to the vaccine in pregnant people, finding that vaccination rates were lowest among Hispanic (11.9%) and non-Hispanic Black participants (6%).5

“We now will increase the workload on physician offices to have to deal with denials from insurances for patients that would benefit from these vaccines,” Dr Harrington continued. “I truly hope that there will be more information to clarify exactly what information was used to base this decision.”

On May 12, 2025, the CDC had published its Interim Clinical Considerations for the Use of COVID-19 Vaccinations in the United States, which stated, “COVID-19 vaccination is recommended for women who are pregnant, trying to get pregnant, might become pregnant in the future, and who are breastfeeding. A growing body of evidence on the safety and effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccination indicates that the benefits of vaccination outweigh any potential risks of COVID-19 vaccination during pregnancy.”6

As of the publishing of this article, the CDC has not updated its website to reflect the announced changes.

References:

  1. Kennedy. [@SecKennedy]. (2025, May 27). Today, the COVID vaccine for healthy children and healthy pregnant women has been removed [Tweet]. Twitter. https://x.com/seckennedy/status/1927368440811008138?s=46&t=kBbEX3mrEOJAU2F44vYIZQ
  2. Prasad V, Makary M. An evidence-based approach to Covid-19 vaccination. N Engl J Med. 2025;doi:10.1056/NEJMsb2506929
  3. COVID-19-Associated Hospitalizations – COVID-NET, April 2025 Update. https://www.cdc.gov/acip/downloads/slides-2025-04-15-16/03-Havers-COVID-508.pdf#page=16.00. Published April 15, 2025. Accessed May 28, 2025. 
  4. Sun H. On Preliminary Findings of mRNA Covid-19 Vaccine Safety in Pregnant Persons. N Engl J Med. 2021;385(16):1535-1536. doi:10.1056/NEJMc2113516
  5. Razzaghi H, Meghani M, Pingali C, et al. COVID-19 Vaccination Coverage Among Pregnant Women During Pregnancy - Eight Integrated Health Care Organizations, United States, December 14, 2020-May 8, 2021. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep. 2021;70(24):895-899. Published 2021 Jun 18. doi:10.15585/mmwr.mm7024e2
  6. Interim clinical considerations for the use of COVID-19 vaccines in the United States. https://www.cdc.gov/covid/media/pdfs/2025/04/Interim-Clinical-Consideration-for-Use-of-COVID-19-Vaccines.pdf. Published May 12, 2025. Accessed May 28, 2025.