A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention panel is considering adding Covid-19 vaccinations to the list of recommended childhood vaccines. The decision is expected to come from the annual meeting on vaccines on Thursday, at which time officials decide which vaccines should be recommended to certain age groups and individuals.
While the CDC doesn’t mandate shots for children, several states have laws that say they adopt the CDC vaccine guidelines automatically. Mainstream media has criticized Fox News analyst Tucker Carson for saying the CDC is going to mandate the shots; for many states, the CDC guidelines are indeed a mandate because for children to attend school, they must be current on the CDC list of shots. All states adopt the CDC vaccine list with minimal variation.
The CDC itself went into damage control over Carlson’s claim: “Thursday, CDC’s independent advisory committee (ACIP) will vote on an updated childhood immunization schedule. States establish vaccine requirements for school children, not ACIP or CDC,” the CDC said on Twitter, not discussing the nuance that the CDC actually does trigger mandates.
Children are given a long list of vaccines as a requirement to attend school, including for diseases such as measles, mumps, diphtheria, pertussis, chicken pox, and hepatitis A and B. The list of vaccines have a long history of usage, and some side effects are accepted with them. Sometimes side effects to vaccines can be severe, but it’s a societal decision that the spread of a disease is a worse outcome. Diseases such as polio and smallpox have had crippling and deadly results. Vaccines are given to children starting at a very young age, starting at birth with a hepatitis B shot.
With Covid-19 shots, there is less known about long-term side effects and pharmaceutical companies have no legal liability because these shots are being used under an emergency authorization to prevent the spread and severity of Covid.
The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices is not the final arbiter, but the CDC director usually accepts the recommendations and states will follow suit.
CDC already recommends that people ages 5 years and older receive one updated (bivalent) booster if it has been at least 2 months since their last COVID-19 vaccine dose, whether that was their final primary series dose, or an original (monovalent) booster. The Covid booster shot schedule has been variable in nature, but appears to be heading toward at least one booster shot per year, as the virus mutates.
The agenda and webcast link to the meeting:
The Alaska Department of Health Immunization Packet, with current requirements for vaccines for children to attend school, is at this link.
