The nation's top public health agency has posted new recommendations that healthy children and pregnant women may — but no longer should — get COVID-19 vaccinations. The change comes days after U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced that COVID-19 vaccines will no longer recommended for healthy children and pregnant women. Kennedy announced the coming changes in a 58-second video posted on the social media site X on Tuesday. No one from the CDC was in the video, and CDC officials have referred questions about the announcement to Kennedy and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. says COVID-19 vaccines are no longer recommended for healthy children and pregnant women. In a 58-second video posted on the social media site X, Kennedy said he removed COVID-19 shots from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's recommendations for those groups. No one from the CDC was in the video. U.S. health officials, following recommendations by infectious disease experts, have been urging annual COVID-19 boosters for all Americans ages 6 months and older. A CDC scientific advisory panel is set to meets in June and will consider recommending vaccination for high-risk groups but still giving lower-risk people the choice in getting a shot. But Kennedy decided not to wait.

Five years after the virus that causes COVID emerged in China it still holds some mysteries. The disease has killed an estimated 20 million people globally, according to the World Health Organization, and thousands are still dying every year. But scientists still aren't clear where it came from, and they are still trying to understand what causes long-term symptoms called long COVID. And while vaccines have helped dramatically reduce severe disease and death from COVID, the virus mutates so quickly researchers have struggled to find a vaccine that stops the spread.

Updated COVID-19 vaccines are on their way. The Food and Drug Administration approved new shots from Pfizer and Moderna on Thursday, and the companies are set to begin shipping millions of doses. The shots are cleared for adults and children as young as 6 months, and health authorities hope far more Americans get them this year. Vaccinations could begin in days, as a summer wave of COVID-19 continues. Authorities say anyone who's recently been infected can wait three months after recovering to get vaccinated.