Can You Still Get a COVID-19 Vaccine at Any Age?

Vaccine recommendations could change, but experts highlight the importance of the shot for many

Rachel Nania,

Updated June 25, 2025

AARP

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En español

Published May 21, 2025

/ Updated June 25, 2025

nurse in PPE and latex gloves carrying a syringe with a covid-19 vaccine

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A panel of experts that advises the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on vaccine recommendations, known as the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), met on June 25 to review the latest data on COVID-19 and discuss evidence for future vaccine recommendations. The group, however, has not yet voted on who should receive the vaccine in the fall, and no date was announced for a future vote.

Insurers are required to cover certain vaccines recommended by the ACIP and adopted by the CDC.

Who can get a COVID-19 vaccine now?

Currently, the CDC recommends that most adults ages 18 and older get vaccinated with the most recently updated vaccine (known as the 2024-2025 vaccine) and that parents of children ages 6 months to 17 years discuss the vaccine with their doctors.

Health officials have recommended that adults 65 and older get a second dose of the 2024-2025 vaccine six months after their first. This is because older adults remain at high risk for hospitalization from a coronavirus infection. According to data presented by the CDC at the June 25 meeting, there have been 250,000 COVID-related hospitalizations in the U.S. since October 2024, and 72 percent of COVID-19 hospitalizations in the past year occurred in adults 65 and older.

It’s possible that access to the COVID-19 vaccines may become more limited. In May, Food and Drug Administration (FDA) vaccines chief Vinay Prasad, M.D., and FDA Commissioner Martin Makary, M.D., published an article in The New England Journal of Medicine saying the agency could limit COVID vaccine eligibility to adults 65 and older and individuals with at least one underlying health condition that increases their risk of severe illness from a coronavirus infection. Such conditions include asthma, heart disease, lung disease, diabetes, obesity, cancer and physical inactivity, among many others.

The authors said that for people between the ages of 6 months and 64 years who don’t have any risk factors for severe COVID, “the FDA anticipates the need for randomized, controlled trial data” to evaluate the benefit of the vaccines before licensing them for younger populations.

Potential changes raise questions for adults under 65

While adults 65 and older are among those at highest risk for severe illness from COVID-19, younger populations are not immune to the virus. Roughly 17 percent of COVID deaths have occurred in adults ages 50 to 64, and about 5.5 percent in people ages 30 to 49, according to federal data.

Robert H. Hopkins Jr., M.D., medical director of the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases, says the changes outlined in the New England Journal of Medicine article could “raise, potentially, additional concerns in the health care professional community about the value of vaccinating people at all who are under 65, if they don’t have major health conditions.”

What’s more, Hopkins adds, the framework excludes people who want to get the vaccine to reduce their risk of long COVID, which affects more than 20 million Americans. According to the CDC, research shows that COVID vaccination is the best way to prevent long COVID, including in children.

“There’s an implication that [the vaccine] is not effective, and we know it’s effective,” says Rebecca Wurtz, M.D., an infectious disease physician and a professor of health policy and management at the University of Minnesota. According to a CDC study, the vaccines averted approximately 68,000 hospitalizations during the 2023–2024 respiratory virus season.

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William Schaffner, M.D., an infectious disease expert and professor of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, says the data presented at the June 25 ACIP meeting “showed from beginning to end that the [COVID] vaccine was effective against preventing serious disease and was safe.”

Wurtz says the shift could also put more responsibility on patients under 65 to familiarize themselves with all the conditions that can increase their risk of severe illness and communicate those conditions to their doctor, especially since it’s unlikely clinical trial data will be available in time for the fall vaccine season.

“The risk factors [outlined by the CDC] are conditions that many people ages 50 to 65 share,” Wurtz says, pointing to obesity as one and hearing trouble as another. Federal research shows that 28 percent of adults 50 and older are physically inactive — another key risk factor for severe COVID-19.

Another concern among some doctors is that proposed changes to vaccine eligibility ignore young children, who are not immune to the effects of COVID-19. Data presented at the June 25 ACIP meeting showed that rates of COVID-19-associated hospitalizations among infants 6 months and younger are comparable to rates among adults ages 65 to 74.

According to an analysis of data from the American Academy of Pediatrics, about 234,000 children under age 18 were hospitalized with COVID-19 from the fall of 2020 to the spring of 2024. And children ages 0 to 4 accounted for 58 percent of the confirmed COVID-19 hospital admissions from January 2022 to April 2024, the same analysis found.

“We’re not talking about and thinking about that relationship between, you know, teachers and health care providers and grandparents getting COVID and transmitting it to their nonimmune grandchildren or patients or students,” Wurtz says.

CDC data shows that about 13 percent of U.S. children under 18 got the COVID-19 vaccine in the 2024-2025 respiratory illness season.

Reducing your COVID risk

It’s unclear if and when new COVID-19 vaccine recommendations will become official, but there are still things you can do to lower your risk of getting sick from COVID-19 in the meantime.

Wurtz says that adults 65 and older who are concerned about the virus this summer can get a spring booster, as recommended by the CDC. Individuals who are moderately or severely immunocompromised are also eligible for a spring shot.

“We know that immunity wanes over the space of four to six months. And we also know that COVID is a year-round condition, not an influenza-patterned condition,” Wurtz says. “[The vaccine] is safe, it’s effective, it’s covered by insurance, and it’s available at drugstores. And I think people [65 and older] should be reminded to get that booster.”

For people under 65 who are not eligible for a spring shot, washing hands often and cleaning frequently touched surfaces can help reduce the risk of getting sick. Opting for outdoor activities over indoor ones and wearing a high-quality mask in public indoor areas can also help.

“We have to recognize that COVID-19 is still here with us,” Hopkins says. “It’s still causing thousands of deaths a year. It’s causing tens of thousands of hospitalizations a year. Those numbers are less each year as we come through the pandemic, but as long as the virus continues to circulate, we’re still going to generate new variants.”

CDC data shows that from Oct. 1, 2024, through June 7, 2025, there were between 32,000 and 51,000 deaths from COVID-19 in the U.S.

Editor’s note: This story, first published May 21, 2025, has been updated to include new information.

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