Health

CDC Shifts Child Covid Vaccination Guidance After RFK Jr. Post

A child arrives at a vaccination site for children in Miami in 2021.
Photographer: Eva Marie Uzcategui/Bloomberg

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By Jessica Nix and Rachel Cohrs Zhang

May 30, 2025 at 5:10 PM UTC

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention updated its childhood vaccination schedule to say that healthy children “may receive” Covid shots — softened from its previous stance calling for them — after Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said it would no longer be recommended.

When a parent wants “their child to be vaccinated, children 6 months and older may receive Covid-19 vaccination, informed by the clinical judgment of a health-care provider,” the CDC website now says. It had previously recommended that everyone aged six months and older get vaccinated.