I’m starting to think that American is suffering from some sort of collective amnesia. Look, whatever your opinions on how the government handled the COVID-19 pandemic, especially in its early days, I would hope we can all agree that it sucked. Think the government was far too restrictive, or lacked nuance in how it put forth restrictions, regarding lockdowns and the like? Hey, you know what, me too to some extent. On the other hand, you know, over a million Americans have died from the pandemic, so we need to be really careful with discussions about how to handle it.

I don’t think it will surprise anyone when I say I am not a fan of Donald Trump. That being said, if you were to ask me what his signature accomplishment was during his first term, I wouldn’t hesitate to say that it was Operation Warp Speed, which helped to bring us the COVID vaccines. But for his second term, Trump put RFK Jr. in charge of American health, which is why this signature accomplishment is being reduced to an approval for the fall COVID vaccines under the tightest restrictions yet.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved updated COVID-19 shots for the fall season on Aug. 27, implementing the tightest restrictions on who can access the vaccines since they became available.

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced the approval on social media platform X, saying emergency use authorizations for COVID-19 vaccines have been terminated and that the Moderna, Pfizer and Novavax immunizations are approved for “those at high risk.”

Under the updated approvals, only those over the age of 65 and people with existing health problems will be recommended the COVID-19 vaccine, according to federal guidelines.

Kennedy went on in a separate post to reiterate that he’d promised that vaccines would be available to everyone who still wanted them. But as is typical from Kennedy, the claim he’s keeping that promise is steeped in bullshit. With this new FDA approval with the included restrictions, there’s a lot we don’t know:

Will insurance cover the vaccines outside of those approved for groups?Will doctors be willing to even prescribe them, a necessity now, if they fall outside of those groups?Will there be punishments as a result of not adhering strictly to the FDA approval guidelines?

Depending on the answers to those questions, there indeed might be a great many people who suddenly can’t get COVID shots even if they want them, either due to an unwillingness to prescribe them by doctors fearful of reprisal, or because they simple can’t afford them if insurance doesn’t cover the shots.

We will begin to lose whatever benefits we’ve gained against COVID through widespread vaccination. And, yes, it’s certainly true that vaccination rates have waned as the disease has evolved to be less serious and deadly for most people.

But there’s nothing to say that it can’t roar back with a vengeance.

From Techdirt via this RSS feed