Day: September 5, 2025

I can’t get a COVID shot, can I?

I want my COVID shot!

COVID vaccineI can’t get a COVID shot, can I? Well, not yet. From MedPage Today: Getting a COVID Shot Just Became Much More Difficult. Here’s why. State statutes and clashing recommendations create challenges for pharmacists and patients.

LA Times: “In recent years, the federal government’s recommendation for COVID vaccines was simple: Everyone age 6 months and up should get an updated shot in the fall.

“This year, however, under the leadership of the vaccine skeptic HHS Secretary RFK Jr…” – who got grilled yesterday at a Senate hearing – “the FDA only ‘approved’ the updated vaccines for people age 65 and up, as well as younger people with at least one health condition that puts them at high risk for severe COVID should they get infected.” He picked seven new members for the CDC’s vaccine panel this week, at least five of whom are vaccine skeptics.

After reading this article in the New York Times, “CVS and Walgreens Clamp Down on COVID-19 Vaccines in Many States,” I sighed. How has this regime managed to screw up something that was working?

The subhead: “State laws and regulatory chaos are driving the country’s largest pharmacy chains to require prescriptions or hold back altogether unless a C.D.C. panel acts.”

The Times Union notes that with the new FDA ruling and CDC panel upheaval, it’s ‘purgatory’ for COVID-19 vaccines.
I want my COVID shot!


I went to the CVS portal. It notes, “In patients aged 65 years and older selecting Moderna pharmacy stores, mNEXSPIKE (COVID-19 Vaccine, mRNA) will be administered.” Ooo, I’m over 65!


But the site indicates: “Vaccine(s) unavailable. Due to state restrictions or inventory, we’re unable to schedule your vaccine(s). Update your selection(s) or try a new location.” I was in Massachusetts last weekend, dropping off the daughter, but I can’t get one there at all. 
My county health department’s page indicates they give COVID shots! Let’s try that! Well, not yet; the county hasn’t gotten its supply and may not until early October.
Wait! I just learned that New York Governor Kathy Hochul plans to sign an executive order allowing pharmacists to prescribe and administer the COVID-19 vaccine.

Let me be clear. I think the new COVID policies for those under 65 are… what’s that medical term? Oh, yeah, stupid. For instance, a vaccine is “approved for kids 6 months to 4 years with a high-risk condition.” But as Celine Goundar, CBS News medical contributor and the editor at large for public health at KFF Health News, noted, being under two definitely makes babies more vulnerable to disease.
I want my COVID shot!
I wrote A LOT about COVID on this blog, most recently in March 2025. My first COVID shot was on March 2nd, 2021, at the CVS on Central Ave, and my second shot three weeks later. This allowed me to have lunch with three of my oldest friends.

Subsequently, I’ve gotten three or four shots at various CVS locations. (Hmm, the CVS locations on Central, Madison, and Western in Albany, where I have gotten the vaccines, have all closed. Is this somehow my fault?)

My family contracted COVID-19 in August 2022, but it was relatively mild. One of my wife’s colleagues got COVID in late August 2025, so it’s still out there. The CDC noted: “As of August 26, 2025, we estimate that COVID-19 infections are growing or likely growing in 31 states, declining or likely declining in 4 states, and not changing in 12 states.”
 I’m getting a flu shot this week at a CVS, thank you very much.

Entities are developing workarounds. Again from MedPage Today:
Amid the Chaos, Medical Community Pieces Together Replacements for CDC’s Lost Work— But outside efforts don’t have the framework that has underpinned the public health system.
Oregon, Washington, and California formed a health care alliance to protect vaccine access. But none of this should have been necessary.
Slavery?
In non-COVID news, from the BBC: “Florida is aiming to become the first US state to cancel all of its vaccine mandates, many of which require children to get jabs against diseases like polio to attend public schools. The state’s top health official, Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo, likened the mandates to ‘slavery’ in announcing the plans. ‘Who am I to tell you what your child should put in your body?’ he said. ‘I don’t have that right. Your body is a gift from God.'”

Ah, God will provide. “In Florida, students are currently required to be vaccinated against multiple illnesses, including chicken pox, hepatitis B, measles, mumps, and polio.”

As I mentioned on Facebook, there’s a certain irony that while discussions about actual slavery  are either discouraged or portrayed as relatively benign – see Florida governor Ron DeSantis in 2023 – the opportunity for children to get polio (Bring Back the Iron Lung!) is seen as “freedom.”

Ramblin' with Roger
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