WASHINGTON (Nexstar) — After President Biden received his latest COVID shot, health and government officials are reminding the public that the virus is still making people sick and will continue to be a health concern.
Biden urged people to stay up to date on their vaccines.
“Get one more COVID shot, once a year, that’s it,” Biden said. “Put all the partisan politics aside. We’ve already lost over 1 million Americans to COVID.”
Jen Kates with the Kaiser Family Foundation says the vaccines are a necessary response to new variants.
“It seems that the vaccines we have are still providing protection, but the challenging news is they’re spreading and could be more contagious in some cases, she said. “It promotes good public health when you can see all of those vaccines on a schedule.”
Because COVID-19 isn’t going away, the CDC added the vaccine to the schedule of recommended children’s immunizations and to a program that provides care for low-income or uninsured children.
Dr. Ashish Jha, the White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator, says what the decision doesn’t do is create any sort of mandate.
“States look to the CDC of course for guidance. They will often follow many of the things, but indeed the CDC has been recommending flu shots for kids for many, many years and almost no state that I know of requires flu shots to attend school,” he said.
