CDC Advisers Consider Recommending Narrower Use of COVID-19 Vaccines

The CDC’s current recommendation is universal for those aged 6 months and older.

A healthcare worker prepares a COVID-19 vaccine in a file photograph. Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images

Advisers to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are considering advising the agency to narrow use of COVID-19 vaccines.

A majority of experts in a subgroup of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), which advises the CDC on vaccines, have determined that the COVID-19 vaccines should not be universally recommended, according to a presentation Dr. Lakshmi Panagiotakopoulos of the CDC delivered to the panel on April 15.

Seventy-six percent of the advisers in the subgroup studying the matter said they support a non-universal recommendation as of April 3.

That’s up from 67 percent in February.

Advisers who were polled said they would be comfortable with any non-universal recommendation, such as only recommending the vaccines for certain age groups.

“I’m very happy that we’re seriously considering a risk-based recommendation,” Dr. Jamie Loehr, an ACIP member, said during Tuesday’s meeting.

Loehr also said he was concerned that if a risk-based recommendation is implemented, it might send a message that COVID-19 is no longer dangerous, when it’s still causing hospitalizations and deaths.

Charlotte Moser, the consumer representative committee member, said she was also supportive of narrowing the recommendation. She said she was thinking that a narrower recommendation, though, should emphasize the importance of vaccinating young children.

Dr. Denise Jamieson, another member, said she did not think a narrower recommendation was wise. She noted that, according to an unpublished CDC analysis of medical claims, some three-quarters of U.S. adults have at least one condition, such as chronic liver disease, that puts them at higher risk of severe illness from COVID-19.

Loehr said that in his own practice, the percentage is much lower.

Advisers said they would be comfortable with any non-universal recommendation, such as only recommending the vaccines for certain age groups.

The CDC currently recommends all Americans aged 6 months and older receive one of the available COVID-19 vaccines, even if they have been vaccinated in the past.

ACIP merely provides advice to the CDC, but the agency typically turns the advice into official recommendations.

A formal ACIP vote on advice to the CDC on the next round of COVID-19 vaccines, or the 2025–2026 vaccines, is not expected to take place until June, according to the CDC.

In a separate presentation delivered during Tuesday’s meeting, data from CDC networks showed the effectiveness of the current round of vaccines provides a boost in protection against hospitalization that’s under 50 percent.

Ruth Link-Gelles, another CDC employee, who delivered the presentation, concluded that the vaccines “provided additional protection against COVID-19-associated emergency department and urgent care visits and hospitalizations compared to no 2024-2025 vaccine dose.”

The high level of existing immunity after COVID-19 infection may be affecting the effectiveness results, Link-Gelles said. Prior infection “contributes protection against future disease, though protection wanes over time,” she said.

About 22 percent of U.S. adults have received one of the 2024–2025 COVID-19 vaccines as of late March 2025, compared to 21 percent who received the vaccines available in 2023 and early 2024 through late March 2024, according to the CDC.

Hospitalizations with COVID-19 are down from the prior year, while hospitalizations with influenza are up from 2023–2024, according to a third presentation. Most of the people who were hospitalized with COVID-19 had not received one of the latest COVID-19 vaccines before being hospitalized.