For many Americans, the new Covid vaccine guidelines from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), spearheaded by health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr and his highly controversial Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement, have added another layer of stress to an increasingly inaccessible healthcare system.
The agency authorized Covid vaccines for people 65 and older, who are known to be more at risk from serious illnesses from Covid infections, but younger people will only be eligible if they have an underlying medical condition that makes them particularly vulnerable.
With this upcoming fall and winter – the first where the US government hasn’t recommended widespread Covid vaccinations – these changes have introduced a creeping sense for many that their ageing or immunocompromised loved ones are in danger.
For Madison Heckel, a 33-year-old attorney in the final stretch of wedding planning, the stakes feel personal. She has struggled with frequent illness ever since first contracting Covid in 2021.
“Ever since then, I just catch everything,” she said. Though she expressed her frustrations with a weakened immune system, she had her doubts that she would qualify for vaccine coverage under the new guidelines.
Her immediate worry is simple: not being bedridden on the day she says “I do”. “Weddings are expensive, and I don’t want to be sick that day if I can prevent it, and so I just want to get the vaccine,” she said. “I’ve gotten my booster every year.”
Yet the new rules have complicated what was once routine. Instead of stopping by CVS, as she has in past years, Heckel found herself on the phone with her insurer, navigating coverage questions and learning she’d need to go to a different pharmacy.
“I just am really hoping that I don’t have to risk being sick on my wedding day,” she said.
Though she was relieved to find out her vaccine would still be covered in some capacity, she’s still worried that her wedding – attended by people of all age groups – will likely host a significant number of guests who won’t be vaccinated. She doesn’t want anyone to get sick because they were there.
“I don’t know how many of the people who will be at my wedding are trying to get vaccinated, or how many qualify,” she said. “It just feels like it’s so much more complicated than it’s ever been before to get a vaccine.”
For 18-year-old student Zeke Fraser-Plant, the new guidelines heightened concerns he already carries daily. His parents and a close friend continue to live with long-term effects from contracting Covid: “My father has a lot of problems with brain fog. My mother loses her sense of smell completely. It comes back off and on.” His friend, who caught Covid as a teenager, struggles with memory.
Fraser-Plant’s his biggest fear has just been made stronger. “I’m absolutely terrified that I might kill somebody I know by bringing it home to them,” he said.
Unlike Heckel, Fraser-Plant does not automatically qualify for coverage. He and his family are prepared to pay out of pocket, even considering travel abroad. “It’s also a possibility that we might go out of the country to get the vaccine, if that becomes necessary,” he said.
But cost is only part of the concern. As he prepares to enter community college after a year of service with the Washington Conservation Corps, he worries about being surrounded by classmates who are now less likely to be vaccinated.
“With community college, I mean, it’s a total crapshoot,” he said. “I don’t think most people are going to take it well, if you just walk up and ask them about their vaccination status or how seriously they take Covid.”
His unease is understandable: his grandmother recently survived cancer, leaving her immune system fragile. He takes every precaution he can – masking, boosters, vigilance – but fears that there’s only so much he can do with an increasingly unvaccinated public.
“With the way vaccination rates are going, it’s just terrifying,” he said. “I just don’t know why more people don’t take these kinds of things seriously.”
Haley, a 40-year-old hairstylist from Portland, Oregon, is anxious about her job as someone who interacts with several people each day.
“I am a person in a public job that would prefer to be vaccinated to protect myself and others, and I don’t know if I’ll qualify now,” she said, adding that she feels that the current administration’s views on vaccines are “very, very dangerous”.
Roger, an emergency room physician from Alaska, said that healthcare decisions “should be based on scientific evidence, and not based on pseudoscientific ideology”. He says that he still witnesses many people die or become permanently disabled from Covid, and he’s afraid that those numbers are about to soar.
“I fear that as an emergency physician, I will see more unfortunate children and adults becoming ill and dying due to the lies propagated by this administration,” he said.
Elena, who is retired and living in Los Angeles, currently has stage 4 cancer and is on chemotherapy. Though she still qualifies for the vaccine, her 59-year-old husband apparently will not.
“Would my vaccination protect me if the person I live with gets sick? Possibly not,” she said. “And my chemo is incompatible with the only available treatment for Covid. It seems obvious that household members of immune-suppressed patients should also be eligible.”
Tammy Hansen, a 61-year-old librarian from Illinois, shares similar concerns of infecting a vulnerable loved one with the virus. She is about to become the caretaker for her 85-year-old mother following a major cancer surgery and ongoing chemotherapy.
“I want the vaccine so I can double protect her from getting Covid,” Hansen said. “My husband is 79 and I also worry about transmitting Covid to him.”
She added: “I swear if I get Covid and give it to my mom and she dies, I’ll be taking some kind of action. These fuckers are nuts.”
