Americans find difficulty obtaining updated vaccinations as COVID infections rise

As new data confirms infections are growing in half the country, a perfect storm of anti-science ideology and corporate confusion blocks access to lifesaving vaccines.

An upswing in COVID-19 cases observed across the US during the summer of 2025, driven by new variants like “Stratus” (XFG) and waning immunity, follows a pattern of biannual summer and winter waves seen in previous years.

A deliberate campaign of scientific sabotage orchestrated by the Trump administration is crippling America’s pandemic response, creating a dystopian landscape where patients are turned away from pharmacies and left vulnerable to a rising wave of COVID-19.

This manufactured crisis, triggered by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has forced major chains like CVS and Walgreens to restrict or outright deny updated vaccinations, plunging the nation’s public health system into chaos.

The alarming reality was laid bare in a fiery letter from Senator Ed Markey, who demanded answers from the CEOs of the pharmacy giants.

“Americans’ access to COVID-19 vaccines is now critically compromised—a failure that threatens public health and puts lives at risk,” Markey wrote, condemning the “confluence of alarming factors” that have left millions without protection.

“Amid rising infection rates and mounting concerns over new variants, millions of Americans are finding it increasingly difficult, and in some states impossible, to obtain updated vaccinations at the nation’s largest retail pharmacy chains,” Markey wrote.

Legal experts said that federal decisions were creating an extremely difficult situation for pharmacies to navigate.

The biggest problem is that in some states, the law prohibits pharmacists from administering vaccines that are not recommended by the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention panel.

As the virus continued to mutate, the C.D.C. urged Americans to roll up their sleeves again for annual vaccinations last year, when the panel voted to recommend updated Covid vaccines in June.

In 2023, it endorsed new vaccines in September, just one day after the F.D.A. gave its approval.

The threat of COVID-19 infections has not gone away, but the vaccines that help protect against them will be harder to come by this season.

Under President Donald Trump, federal health officials limited who qualifies for the shots. On Aug. 27, 2025, the Food and Drug Administration approved updated versions only for people who are 65 or older and people who have a medical condition that puts them at higher risk.

The root of the crisis stems from what progressive activist Lisa McCormick identifies as the administration’s “all-out war on reality.”

“This isn’t just incompetence; it’s a calculated assault on public health by an regime that views science as its enemy,” said McCormick. “They have credited pseudoscientific conspiracy theories and systematically dismantled every credible institution designed to protect Americans from disease. Their oppositional attitude toward evidence-based medicine is a direct threat to our freedom—the freedom to not get sick because our government decided to promote quackery over quality care.”

“The pandemic cost the global economy an estimated $82 trillion,” said McCormick. “When I ran against Senator Bob Menendez, I warned that we weren’t ready for this kind of threat, and less than two years later, we paid the price. Over 100 years of vaccine history have shown that measles, polio, and other terrible diseases have been eradicated, but we are disarming rather than preparing for drug-resistant bacteria and as yet unknown fungal and virus infections that may arise.”

The F.D.A. decision creates a fractured and confusing landscape. Healthy people under 65 may face significant obstacles to getting a shot.

Medical experts emphasize that, while hospitalizations and deaths have greatly decreased from earlier in the pandemic, Covid is still spreading — and while some groups are at higher risk, no one is guaranteed to have a mild infection.

Kennedy’s first move as secretary was a chilling purge, firing all 17 members of the CDC’s independent vaccine advisory panel (ACIP), intending to replace them with anti-vaccine activists.

This unprecedented disruption created a regulatory vacuum, delaying critical guidance on who should get boosted and when.

Compounding the chaos, the FDA—now operating under intense political pressure—rescinded emergency use authorizations and shockingly restricted vaccine eligibility only to adults 65 and older or those with specific high-risk conditions.

The result is a Kafkaesque nightmare for ordinary Americans.

CVS now requires a prescription for the COVID vaccine in at least 13 states and the District of Columbia, and it has suspended availability entirely in states like Massachusetts, Nevada, and New Mexico. Walgreens has imposed similar draconian restrictions.

Seniors and the immunocompromised, once prioritized for protection, now find themselves on the phone begging doctors for prescriptions or simply being turned away.

“This is what happens when you let ideology trump life itself,” McCormick stated. “They are creating needless suffering and death to appease a fringe base that thrives on misinformation. It’s a betrayal of the public trust of the highest order, and it is happening with the tacit approval of a political establishment too cowardly to stand up to this medical tyranny.”

The human cost is already mounting.

The latest CDC data paints a grim picture of the escalating threat the administration is ignoring.

As of September 2, COVID-19 infections are estimated to be “growing” or “likely growing” in 24 states. This surge, tracked by the transmission rate (Rt), is a leading indicator of future hospitalizations and deaths—a wave that could be blunted with widespread vaccine access.

Senator Markey has given the pharmacy CEOs until September 18 to answer a blistering set of questions, demanding to know how they are impacting vulnerable populations and what they are doing to mitigate the damage caused by the federal government’s failure.

But for critics like McCormick, the questions are too little, too late.

“The blame lies squarely at the feet of Kennedy and Trump,” she said. “They have engineered this breakdown. They have weaponized uncertainty. And every hospitalization, every long COVID case, and every death that results from this vaccine blockade is on their hands. This is no longer a pandemic of a virus; it’s a pandemic of deliberate, malicious neglect.”

Nearly 100 people from 14 states have gotten sick from the same strain of Salmonella. Eighteen people have been hospitalized, and no deaths have been reported. Most of the sick people are from California (73 people).

Most people infected with Salmonella develop diarrhea, fever, and stomach cramps 6 hours to 6 days after being exposed to the bacteria. The illness usually lasts 4 to 7 days, and most people recover without treatment. In some people, the illness may be so severe that the patient is hospitalized.

Sen. Maria Cantwell called Kennedy a “charlatan” during a Senate Finance Committee hearing, criticizing his decision to cancel hundreds of millions in research funding for future mRNA vaccines, saying the research was needed for future pandemic preparedness.

Kennedy responded, claiming the Washington State Democrat was “wrong on your facts,” but Republicans also took him to task for the defunding of mRNA vaccine research.

Kennedy has come under intense scrutiny the medical science community for actions taken since the start of the second Trump administration, including firing the entire vaccine advisory panel at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

During a contentious three-hour hearing, Kennedy defended changes he made at the CDC, saying they were “necessary adjustments to restore the agency to its role as the world’s gold standard public health agency.”