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Welcome to The Logoff: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is dropping a Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention suggestion that wholesome pregnant folks and kids obtain the Covid-19 vaccine, a regarding signal for vaccine availability and the nation’s public well being companies.
What occurred immediately? Kennedy, the Well being and Human Companies secretary, mentioned in a video posted to X on Tuesday morning that the Covid vaccine would now not be included within the CDC’s beneficial immunization schedule for wholesome pregnant folks and kids. Being pregnant can result in elevated dangers from Covid-19, and really younger infants (who might be protected if their mom is vaccinated throughout being pregnant) even have increased charges of hospitalization.
What does that truly imply for vaccine availability? Although the change received’t immediately forestall anybody from receiving the vaccine, it can nearly actually make it tougher to entry by creating new price boundaries. Insurers are required to cowl beneficial vaccines however not others, and a Covid vaccine prices about $140 out of pocket.
What else ought to I do know concerning the change? Tuesday’s announcement represents an finish run round regular coverage course of for vaccine suggestions within the US, specialists advised Stat Information. Whereas Covid vaccine suggestions had been already below evaluation, Kennedy seems to have circumvented the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices in making his announcement Tuesday, opposite to a promise he made when he was up for Senate affirmation earlier this yr.
What’s the massive image? Kennedy has a lengthy historical past of anti-vaccine advocacy; his choice to change suggestions across the Covid vaccine with out full enter from nonpartisan specialists on the CDC represents a regarding politicization of public well being, one that would have well being penalties for People.
And with that, it’s time to log out…
I hope you had a superb vacation weekend, expensive reader. Now that we’ve handed the unofficial begin of summer time, chances are you’ll be in search of a seaside learn — and the New York Instances has this wonderful primer on Sir Terry Pratchett’s sprawling Discworld sequence from over the weekend. Columnist Olivia Waite describes it as a sequence “not about how one can be good, however about how one can do good, and why even the smallest acts of kindness matter.” Plus, it’s uproariously humorous — what could possibly be higher?
