Beth Connor, a caregiver who would be excluded from Covid vaccination under new FDA rules, with her son.Courtesy Beth Connor
On Tuesday, the Food and Drug Administration announced that Covid booster shots will be limited to people over 65 and those with pre-existing health conditions that would put them at higher risk of acute complications.
The FDA’s move is not surprising, given that Trump-appointed Covid contrarians Vinay Prasad, the director of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, and Marty Makary, the recently confirmed FDA commissioner, have openly advocated for such restrictions since before the initial vaccine was even approved. “The FDA will approve vaccines for high-risk persons and, at the same time, demand robust, gold-standard data on persons at low risk,” the two wrote in a New England Journal of Medicine article that was published on Tuesday.
Many groups of people face new or added risks as a consequence of the FDA’s decision; notably, the agency has not signaled any intention to establish carveouts for caregivers of people who still qualify for Covid vaccines under its new rules. People who qualify for the vaccine, including disabled children, those with cancer, and aging adults, may rely on the support of caregivers to keep them healthy and help them function in day-to-day life. Even with masking and other protective measures, added immunity for people caring for those with Covid, or at risk of contracting it, is important in reducing the odds of infection and of subsequently contracting Long Covid, which 20 million people in the US have been diagnosed with.
“By restricting vaccine access to caregivers who don’t meet age or high-risk criteria,” said Jason Resendez, CEO of the National Alliance for Caregiving, “the FDA creates a dangerous public health gap, as unvaccinated caregivers face increased risk of contracting and transmitting Covid-19 to the older adults and seriously ill individuals who depend on their care.”
Beth Connor, who lives in North Carolina—which also enacted a mask ban in 2024—is the mother of a six-year-old with a chronic lung disease who has had a tracheostomy. Her son requires round-the-clock care, which is provided by her, her husband, and a nurse; they would not be eligible for vaccines under the FDA’s new policy.
“If one of us were to get sick, it would really impact our ability to care for our son, who is very dependent on us for meeting all of his basic needs and keeping him safe,” Connor told me.
Anna Sanders, who is based in Texas, lost her dad following a kidney transplant after one of his nurses came to work with Covid. Sanders, now assisting in care for her 71-year-old mother, is concerned that “limiting access to the vaccine will only cause more situations like this.”
Other options—like traveling to Canada to get vaccinated—are much less practical for families like Connor’s, with a child who has complex health issues. Other full-time caregivers are in the same boat.
Like Sanders, Connor is concerned that limiting who can get the Covid vaccine, and thereby lowering herd immunity, would limit what her family is able to do for and with her son.
“Once we got [the Covid vaccine] and more people getting it, it felt like we could actually go to a playground, go to a library, just things that our kid enjoys,” Connor said. “If people are not able to get it, that really impacts our ability just to be in the community.”
