CDC recommends patients consult a health care provider for Covid-19 vaccination

By Brenda Goodman, Katherine Dillinger, CNN

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention signed off on a recommendation that patients must consult a health care provider to get a Covid-19 vaccine, although they don’t necessarily need a prescription.

The recommendations shifted away from a broader push most people to get a Covid-19 vaccine and was made by a new panel of vaccine advisers chosen by US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. CDC’s OK makes the recommendations final and US vaccine schedules will be updated, HHS said on Tuesday.

The new recommendations mean that people ages 6 months and older can get Covid-19 vaccines after shared clinical decision making with a qualified health care provider, a recommendation that keeps the shots available to people, but also creates barriers to access.

The signoff is coming later than usual for the fall respiratory virus season. With the recommendation, the government can finally distribute Covid-19 vaccines through its Vaccines for Children program which provides free inoculations to about half of US children.

The CDC’s independent vaccine advisers, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, voted unanimously last month that people who want a Covid-19 vaccine should consult with a health care provider, a process called shared clinical decision-making. However, they narrowly voted down a recommendation that a prescription should be required to get the shot.

In August, the US Food and Drug Administration moved to limit approval of Covid-19 vaccines to adults 65 and older as well as younger people who are at higher risk of severe illness because of other health conditions.

A study published recently in the journal JAMA Network Open found that a universal Covid-19 vaccine recommendation — as had been in place for the US in recent years — could save thousands more lives than limiting the recommendation to high-risk groups.

Experts said that even requiring shared clinical decision-making could make Covid-19 shots harder to get.

The recommendation “assumes health care and insurance,” said Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, who recently resigned as head of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases. “We do not have universal health care in this country, and we know millions of people are losing insurance.”

Another new recommendation will mean that toddlers get their first vaccines against measles and chickenpox separately, around their first birthdays. In this case, the ACIP guidance formalizes an existing recommendation, which is designed to reduce a very rare, slightly elevated risk of seizures when the two shots are combined into a single injection.

The CDC advisers said that the single-dose measles, mumps, rubella and varicella vaccine was not recommended before age 4 and that younger kids should get the varicella vaccine, which protects against chickenpox, separately from the shot that protects against measles, mumps and rubella.

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