Helen Branswell, Stat News infectious diseases and global health reporter: “Is the solution making it harder for individuals to get vaccines?”

Take as Directed

For Helen Branswell, the celebrated Stat News reporter, the SARS outbreak of 2003, while she was based in Toronto, was a thunderclap moment. Jump forward 22 years: Secretary Kennedy on May 28, posted a one-minute video on X announcing he is not recommending Covid vaccines for healthy children and pregnant women -- an “unprecedented” unilateral decision without any normal process. “It came out of the mind of the individuals who wrote it.” What does this bold step signal? The public is voting with its feet in the low uptake of Covid vaccines by the older and more vulnerable population. Yet it is not clear why the government has to take active measures to make vaccines less available to healthy individuals. CDC should play a lead role in deliberations but is cut out. The CDC director position is vacant, and no acting director is in place. Will vaccine producers need to run new field trials for updated boosters? “They (the Trump administration) have been quite unclear in what they are asking for.”127 days into the second Trump administration, how to characterize things? “I would characterize it as exhausting.” “The change has been massive, and it is not over.” What gives you hope? “That is a very hard question.”