The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has recommended that COVID-19 vaccines be included in the routine vaccine schedule for both children and adults.
The schedule does not set any vaccine requirements for schools and workplaces.
The changes have been published in the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report and include the addition of the COVID-19 primary vaccine series and recommendations for booster doses, updated guidance on influenza and pneumococcal vaccines, and new vaccines for measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) and hepatitis B.
The changes were recommended by the CDC’s vaccine advisors and the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP).
According to epidemiologists Dr. Neil Murthy and Dr. A. Patricia Wodi, this means the COVID vaccine “is now presented as any other routinely recommended vaccine and is no longer presented in a special ‘call out’ box as in previous years.”
“This, in a sense, helps ‘normalize’ this vaccine and sends a powerful message to both healthcare providers and the general public that everyone ages 6 months and older should stay up to date with recommended COVID-19 vaccines (including a booster, when eligible), just as they would with any other routinely recommended vaccine,” they went on to say.
The CDC now recommends that children between the ages of six months and 15 months receive a two-dose or three-dose primary series and booster, while children between 18 months and adulthood should also receive the primary series and boosters.
Children over six months old can receive the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine or the Moderna vaccine, and children over 12 years old can also receive the Novavax vaccine.
Children who are “moderately or severely immunocompromised” are recommended to receive the three-dose series.
Adults are also recommended to receive the two-dose or three-dose primary series and boosters.
The CDC noted that the doses are not covered by the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program but fall under the Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program (CICP).
American Faith reported how the package insert for Pfizer Inc.’s mRNA vaccine reveals the drug contains an ingredient listed as “[n]ot for human or veterinary diagnostic or therapeutic use” in a technical data sheet referencing the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).
Pfizer’s vaccine contains 0.43 mg of a synthetic lipid called ALC-0315, which “is for research use” and is “[n]ot for human or veterinary diagnostic or therapeutic use,” according to a data safety sheet from American biotechnology company Cayman Chemical.
