Changes in COVID vaccines have confused and uncomfortable some parents and families: lens

Access to Covid vaccines will be subject to greater restrictions for certain groups after federal health officials change their recommendations. Spencer Platt/Getty Images Closed subtitles

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Spencer Platt/Getty Images

Loryn Competti watched the news with her husband at her home in Cincinnati when she heard about the new federal government’s new policies on who should get the federal vaccine.

“I started crying,” the competitor said. "I was like, 'Do I really can't get this vaccine? Why? Why?' That's absolutely frightening."

The 30-year-old competitor is about five months pregnant, meaning she is at high risk due to severe complications from Kuved. However, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has lowered recommendations that healthy pregnant women will usually get vaccinated against the virus.

This means that many insurers may no longer pay for their shots.

"I don't want to get mutual in the middle of pregnancy," the competitor said. "I don't want it to hurt my child. I don't want to be born again. I just know that what follows is the complications."

She also knows that the most important way to protect her newborn son is to get vaccinated so that she can share antibodies in her uterus. The newborn baby is too young to shoot himself.

Lorraine, 30, took photos with her husband Jack Mansfield in July 2024. Loryn is about five months pregnant and wants to get vaccinated to protect herself and her newborn baby. Competing families Closed subtitles

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Competing families

Competition is just one of many people who are concerned about a series of changes the Trump administration has implemented in recent weeks, affecting a common vaccine for healthy pregnant women, children without other health problems, and adults under 65 have no risk factors.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has made recommendations that healthy children will usually continue to get vaccinated, and now says parents should talk to their children’s doctor about shooting.

And, starting with a new booster this fall, the FDA will now only approve people at high risk for people with severe complications with Covid, because they are 65 or older, or risk factors for health problems that make them vulnerable. The FDA requires vaccine companies to conduct a large, expensive study to prove that vaccines are still necessary and safe for everyone else.

Debate on existing proposals

Government officials believe that these shots are no longer needed for healthy pregnant women, children and young people under the age of 65 because there are many people immunity at this time.

Officials such as Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and FDA Commissioner Martin Makary also questioned the safety of the vaccine, although billions have been shot and a broad consensus among most public health and infectious disease experts that shooting is very safe and effective.

In any case, most Americans refuse to get co-shoots, and many are indifferent to change. Some people in the social media responses received by NPR They are happy to see these changes, claiming that the vaccine has hurt them. Some outside observers agree with the changes.

"I think the existing shared advice, especially for anyone over 6 months, is very ridiculous and very extreme," said Judge Glock, director of research at the conservative think tank Manhattan Institute. "I think it fits our understanding of the current science about vaccines and the current risks and rewards of vaccination."

It is recommended that parents of children may still get shots after talking to a doctor, which may mean that insurance companies will still pay for shootings, but that is not guaranteed.

“Based on my collective observation of the coverage of vaccines for payers, the most important thing is the expectation of coverage variability,” said health care policy attorney Richard Hughes. Follow the question.

Competitors and others who no longer recommend or approve vaccines may still be able to get vaccinated because doctors can prescribe “outside the label” so that people can pay for it themselves. However, the lens may cost as much as $200. Children who receive their first vaccination need two shots.

The competitor knows that she may still be able to get vaccinated with her own shooting. But all the uncertainty and the rules of change made her anxious.

“If we lose the opportunity to use the common vaccine, I don’t know if anything else will be taken away,” she said. “I’m scared.”

Another problem is that these moves may confuse many doctors, pharmacists and other health professionals, and even if they can, some hesitation to provide photos.

"These new HHS have changed and have created myths and misunderstandings about the Covid vaccine without any reason," said Kelly Moore, president and CEO of advocacy group Immunize.org.

"The conflicting social of professional medicine on the one hand and HHS leadership on the other will cause great confusion among health care professionals and the public," Moore said. "People who are confused should not act. Their default is not to get vaccinated."

Vaccinated to protect family members

Healthy pregnant women are not the only ones who are worried about getting the camera.

Rachel Sampler Zelaya, 45, her husband Jorge, 45, took a photo with her child (from left) Clara (11, Clara, 11, Jorge 9, Lucia, 6) in February 2025. Zelayas is from Cottage Grove, Minnesota. Zelaya family Closed subtitles

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Zelaya family

Ashley Hoskins, 45, lives with her husband, Bob, 50, and her youngest daughter in Nashville, Tennessee, and wants to continue getting vaccinated. That's because Bob has to take a strong immune system to suppress medications to prevent the body from refusing to transplant the kidneys.

“He is at a higher risk,” said Ashley Hoskins. “So we need not only worry about whether he can get vaccinated. We always have to be vaccinated to provide another wall of protection around him.”

Bob Hoskins is still able to shoot. But now Ashley Hoskins and her daughter are worried whether they will be worried, too.

"Blanket decisions like this - families are not allowed to think about their own private situation," said Ashley Hoskins. "How do we protect the people we love? People will be hurt. So, yes, it's frustrating. It's scary."

Rachel Sampler Zelaya, 42, of Cottage Grove, Minnesota, is also worried.

Her 6-year-old daughter Lucia suffers from asthma. So Zelaya hopes to continue to let herself, her husband Jorge, 45, and their two other healthy children, Jorgito, 9, and Clara, 11, have also been vaccinated to protect her. But none of them automatically qualify except for the youngest children under the new policy.

"I'm very angry," Zelaya said. “It feels like I have a choice.”

However, some government officials question whether vaccinating a person protects those around them.

"So far, there is no high-quality evidence that you have the booster access to grandma protecting grandmas from getting the booster yourself," the CDC video said. "Will this lead to less transmission? Will it lead to fewer cases of serious illness? We are interested in the evidence to inform this claim."

But other experts questioned this argument.

"Basically, vaccination seems to help protect other people you may be in contact with in the range of reducing the frequency or severity of infections," said Dr. Jesse Goodman, a former FDA vaccine official at Georgetown University.

"This makes sense given that vaccination may have a low frequency of infections within three to six months after vaccination, given that some studies suggest that the virus may fall off."

For Hoskins, she was not only worried about protecting her daughter. She also wants to protect the entire family to protect everyone's health.

"It's not just a cold. It affects the vascular system, the nervous system, the immune system. Even mild cases have the potential to develop into long-term interest," she said. "We get much less vaccinated. It's definitely a disease that needs to be vaccinated for me."

She said suddenly having to worry about the vaccine being like a flashback to the early stages of the pandemic.

“It feels like we’re back again to a place where there’s not a lot of things to protect my kids,” she said.