>> The Trump administration is releasing new COVID vaccine guidelines for millions of Americans.

>> The COVID vaccine for healthy children and healthy pregnant women.

Has been removed from the CDC recommended immunization schedule.

Last year, the Biden administration urged healthy children to get yet another COVID shot.

Despite the lack of any clinical data to support the repeat booster strategy in children that ends today.

>> It's common sense.

That's good science.

>> But the CDC seemingly contradicted health Secretary Robert F Kennedy junior by issuing updated guidance, saying healthy kids may get the vaccine in consultation with a doctor or healthcare provider and the agency stands for pregnant people now is no guidance.

So joining us to discuss this, some more is Dr. Katrina Wallace, a professor of epidemiology at the University of Illinois-Chicago Katrina, thank you so much for joining Thank you so much for having me.

So this recommendation coming from the federal government, it's a bit unclear because especially for pregnant people because even then the American College of Obstetrics and gynecology, they are still recommending the shot for pregnant people saying, quote, vaccines are recommended during pregnancy to protect against serious illnesses.

The most common vaccines given in pregnancy include the flu, T-dap COVID-19 and RSV.

These vaccines can keep you healthy and help protect your baby after birth.

Country.

What's your reaction to this move by the federal government?

You know, removing this recommendation for children, healthy people, yes, health care providers and experts have been perplexed by this sudden change because as you probably know, because you report on these things is that every time a new vaccine is available, there is a open forum where the advisers to the CDC go through the data in a very transparent way.

Any new data that could kind of update the risk benefit calculus for a vaccine in a certain group is discussed and we aren't really aware of any new data that should change that risk benefit calculus in any data that might have been used to make these decisions really wasn't communicated.

>> So it has been a little bit confusing to health care providers and people that you need to recommend this to their patients.

But it does seem like they have moved to like you are saying the CDC has moved to sort of a risk sharing kind of talk to your provider which may have positive implications for insurance coverage.

Aside from just saying not to get it.

So then what do parents and pregnant people need to not write?

So especially in pregnancy.

>> This was a surprising about-face because pregnancy, actually, as the ache at the American College Obstetrics and Gynecology correctly point out is the pregnancy can be very dangerous.

Covid can be very dangerous in pregnancy.

It increases the risk of severe disease, hospitalization, ICU visits and deaths.

The rates of all those things are higher in pregnant people with COVID-19 as opposed not non pregnant individuals and also it can infect and damage the placenta during pregnancy.

So it leads to adverse pregnancy outcomes like miscarriage, stillbirth preeclampsia and pre-term labor which are all bad and the vaccine also prevents the newborn from hospitalization after birth because antibodies from the vaccine gets past from the parent to the newborn and protects them after birth and something like 80% of infant hospitalizations for COVID were from unvaccinated mothers.

Okay.

So to that point, the most recent data from the CDC shows that the latest COVID booster uptake rate is low.

It is only 23% for adults and 13% for children.

>> Should that be higher?

I believe it should be higher that as we were talking about before the the every year there's when the new vaccine comes out, they we go through the risks and the benefits of the vaccine in each age group and every year in all the age groups, it has been found that the risks, the benefits rather outweigh the risks in every age group, the the benefits of preventing the severe outcomes weigh the risks of the vaccine.

So I do believe those should be So is there is there were even that the with the of the change in federal recommendations or lack thereof, might that affect accessibility to the vaccine?

Can we still get it my insurance to cover it?

Yes, so I think especially for young children, I'm worried because every year I get a lot of questions about where to get the pediatric doses already.

So anything that could affect that being available is problematic for people that still want to get it.

And then your question insurance is a good one.

Hopefully because we're going to like a risk sharing sort of talk to your provider instead of like it's just available.

Perhaps that's a better scenario for insurance.

But it kind of remains to be seen.

This news.

Of course, it comes as this new COVID Subvariant has emerged in be 1, 8, 1, It's been detected in a few states already.

Not Illinois.

>> Well, the latest booster protect us against that variant.

So luckily the this new variant that you're talking about that has now made landfall in the United States.

Hey, as is kind of on the same branch of the viral family tree as the vaccine that we got in the fall.

So it should offer some protection.

We have heard that it is not more severe.

This variant and the symptoms are similar, but that it is more transmissible and perhaps a little bit better at evading are immune defenses.

There seems to be a pattern of infections.

Are new variants are emerging in the summer months are higher rates of infection common in the summer because we tend to think of flick the flu.

That's in the colder months.

Usually.

Yeah, that's a great question because as much as we want to categorize, this is a seasonal virus.

It really has not lived up to that as much as we want to will lead into being.

so we have seen a summer surge the last 4 years.

And so that's why we're a little concerned about low vaccination rates.

So if people have not gotten the most recent COVID vaccine, it really is not too late at this point to get it because we are seeing these new more transmissible variants kind of hitting our radar, an increase in vaccine.

Hesitancy is also happening at the same time we're seeing a national measles outbreak.

Concerns about bird flu e-coli.

What are your concerns with some of these?

So it's it's extremely concerning.

We have a lot of misinformation swirling about vaccines during COVID-19 on social media and such.

And these have unfortunately spilled over into other vaccines.

And it's very concerning, especially for the measles, mumps, rubella vaccine, the especially the measles.

Part of that vaccine is one of the best vaccines we have.

It's so safe.

It is so effective, but we need 95% of the community to be protected in order to not have outbreaks.

And so we're seeing communities where that herd immunity level is eroding and we actually have 10% of schools in Illinois have less than 91%, which is we'll kind problematic, you know, for potential outbreaks.

So, yes, I think a lot of misinformation that kind of started during the pandemic has spilled over into other things.

And now we're seeing it manifest itself with other