The CDC Didn't Update Its COVID and RSV Guidance This Fall — Here's What AAP, ACOG, and AAFP Are Telling Parents Instead

Last updated: September 2026. This article is for general information and is not a substitute for personalised advice from your doctor, health visitor, paediatrician, or obstetrician. See our Editorial Policy.

Quick answer: For the first time in memory, the CDC has not issued updated 2026–27 recommendations for who should get COVID-19 or RSV vaccines — its process was frozen by ongoing litigation over the administration’s attempt to cut routine childhood vaccines, and only the flu guidance got a (unchanged) extension on September 1, 2026. Into that vacuum, the American Academy of Pediatrics, American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, American Academy of Family Physicians, and Infectious Diseases Society of America released their own evidence-based guidance on September 2, 2026, based on an independent review of the latest research. Their bottom line for this site’s audience: AAP recommends COVID vaccination for all infants and children 6 through 23 months, plus at-risk kids 2–18 and any 2–18 year old whose parent wants one; ACOG continues to recommend COVID vaccination during pregnancy and while trying to conceive or breastfeeding; and AAP has broadened its RSV immunization recommendation to include some 8–19 month olds entering a second RSV season, not just infants under 8 months. None of this changes insurance coverage or availability — private insurers, Medicare, and the Vaccines for Children program are all still expected to cover these shots.

Why this still matters right now

Earlier this month, on September 2, 2026, four of the country’s largest medical societies did something unprecedented: they held a joint briefing to issue their own fall vaccine guidance because the federal government hadn’t. That news is a couple of weeks old now, but it hasn’t been superseded — the CDC still hasn’t issued its own updated COVID or RSV guidance, respiratory season is starting, and most families haven’t made this fall’s vaccine decisions yet, so the question is just as live today as it was on September 2. In a typical year, the CDC publishes updated recommendations for flu, COVID, and RSV vaccines before respiratory season starts. This year, the CDC’s guidance process was frozen by a lawsuit blocking the administration’s efforts to cut the number of vaccines children routinely receive, and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — a longtime vaccine critic who revived that push with President Trump in August — has left COVID and RSV guidance unaddressed. The only federal update so far: on September 1, 2026, the CDC simply extended last year’s flu vaccine recommendations unchanged.

“Unfortunately today, the federal government is not fulfilling that responsibility in the way that it historically has. But the need for that work has not disappeared,” Dr. Bruce Gellin of the Vaccine Integrity Project, an independent initiative based at the University of Minnesota, said at the briefing, as reported by NPR. “We cannot allow the breakdown of the federal process to create a vacuum in evidence-based vaccine guidance.”

For parents of babies and pregnant people specifically, this matters because COVID and RSV vaccination decisions this fall are exactly the ones the CDC left unaddressed. This is a different story from our RSV shot dates guide and our flu vaccine guide — those cover the logistics of scheduling; this one covers the more basic question several medical groups are now answering because the CDC didn’t: is the vaccine still recommended for my baby or during my pregnancy at all, and whose recommendation am I supposed to follow this year?

What the medical groups actually reviewed

This wasn’t four organizations independently guessing. The Vaccine Integrity Project worked with the American Medical Association to review thousands of recent studies on COVID, RSV, and flu vaccines, publishing the resulting analyses in the journal JAMA on September 2, 2026. AAP, ACOG, AAFP, and IDSA then used that evidence review to update their own clinical guidelines simultaneously.

“Americans are hearing conflicting messages about vaccines right now, and it’s understandable that people are asking whom they should trust,” Gellin told reporters before the guidance was released, per NPR. “Americans should have access to the best available scientific evidence.”

The conclusion of that review, according to the groups: the latest COVID, flu, and RSV vaccines remain safe and highly effective at preventing severe complications from all three viruses.

What this means if you’re pregnant

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists continues to recommend COVID-19 vaccination during pregnancy, for people trying to become pregnant, and while breastfeeding — going further than current federal guidance, which dropped the routine recommendation for healthy pregnant people. “These vaccines not only protect mom’s health and reduce the risk of adverse outcomes during pregnancy, but they also protect the newborn when they are unable to get vaccinated,” said Dr. Christina Davidson, ACOG’s chief medical officer, at the September 2 briefing.

This sits alongside — and doesn’t change — the maternal RSV vaccine timeline (Abrysvo, given at 32–36 weeks) covered in our RSV shot guide: that recommendation comes from AAP and CDC’s prior season guidance and wasn’t part of the September 2 announcement, but it’s the other piece of the same fall-immunization decision if you’re pregnant right now.

What this means for your baby or toddler

AAP’s newly published 2026–27 COVID-19 policy statement recommends:

All infants and children 6 through 23 months of age, without contraindications, receive the 2026–27 COVID-19 vaccine.
Children 2 through 18 at increased risk of severe COVID-19 get a single dose, regardless of prior vaccination status.
Any child 2 through 18 not at increased risk should be offered a single dose if their parent or guardian wants them protected — the vaccine stays available by choice even outside the higher-risk groups.
Children 6 months through 18 years who are moderately or severely immunocompromised, and several other specific risk groups (residents of congregate settings, kids never previously vaccinated, or kids whose household contacts are high-risk), have their own tailored recommendations.

Dr. Andrew Racine of the AAP put the reasoning behind all of this plainly at the briefing: “Every recommendation that you are hearing today begins with one simple question: What best protects children from preventable disease and helps them to thrive?”

Separately, AAP also broadened its RSV immunization recommendation this year. Previously the recommendation covered infants under 8 months entering their first RSV season (if their mother wasn’t vaccinated during pregnancy). It now also recommends RSV immunization for infants and children 8 to 19 months old with certain risk factors who are entering a second RSV season — a meaningfully bigger group than last year. If your child is in that 8–19 month range and has an underlying health condition, this is a new conversation to have with your pediatrician even if you already made an RSV decision for their first season.

On flu, the guidance hasn’t changed in substance from what we’ve already covered: everyone 6 months and older should get an annual flu shot, per AAP, AAFP, and the CDC’s own (unchanged) extension.

Will this affect whether I can actually get the shot, or whether insurance pays?

Not for most families, according to the groups and outside experts interviewed by NPR. Private insurers are pledging to keep covering the vaccines, Medicare will continue to pay, and the Vaccines for Children Program — which supplies free vaccines for roughly half of U.S. children — is still expected to operate normally. Most states have also decoupled pharmacists’ ability to administer these shots from federal recommendations, relying instead on guidance like this. “We’re anticipating that this year for the fall respiratory virus season for flu and for COVID there will be far less challenge than there was last year this time,” Brigid Groves of the American Pharmacists Association told NPR. A small number of states may still require a prescription at some pharmacies, so it’s worth a quick call ahead if you’re planning a pharmacy visit rather than a pediatrician appointment.

Has anything changed since the September 2 briefing?

As of this update, no — the CDC has not issued new COVID or RSV guidance, so the medical societies’ recommendations above remain the operative guidance for pregnant people and parents of infants and toddlers. If you’re reading this article days or weeks after publication, it’s worth a quick check of the sources below to confirm the CDC still hasn’t weighed in before assuming nothing has moved.

The part worth taking seriously: this is genuinely unusual, and experts are worried about the confusion itself

It’s easy to read “several major medical groups still recommend the vaccine” as reassuring and move on — and largely, it is. But public health researchers interviewed by NPR flagged the situation itself as a problem, separate from what the vaccines do. “It’s unprecedented that we’re in this situation,” said Jennifer Kates, who studies vaccine policy at KFF. “It creates confusion about what the current status is. And vaccination rates have already been going down because it’s hard for people to get good information and understand who they should trust.”

Jason Schwartz, a vaccine policy researcher at Yale, made a similar point: “There is no substitute for the kind of clear, coherent messages and communication that the CDC has provided for decades. And in its absence, I expect that we will see more confusion, more uncertainty about how best to make use of vaccines as we approach this respiratory virus season.” Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, who resigned last year as director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases in protest of the agency’s changed direction, was blunter still, telling NPR: “The problem is that silence at this point is complicit with trying to not make sure people know about the importance of vaccines… The bottom line is that this is dangerous.”

That confusion risk connects directly to something Parentiol has already covered this year: the record vaccine exemption rates behind this fall’s whooping cough risk and the measles resurgence that produced Pennsylvania’s first measles-associated deaths in 35 years. None of those stories are about COVID or RSV specifically, but they’re the same underlying pattern: when vaccination guidance gets murkier or vaccination rates drop, preventable diseases have more room to spread.

What to actually do this week

If you’re pregnant: ask your OB at your next appointment whether they’re following ACOG’s updated guidance on COVID vaccination — don’t assume your provider has already seen this news.
If your baby is 6–23 months: AAP recommends the COVID vaccine for this group outright; ask your pediatrician when they’ll have it in stock.
If your child is 8–19 months with an underlying health condition: the broadened RSV recommendation may newly apply to them — raise it even if you already made an RSV decision earlier this year.
If you’re going to a pharmacy rather than a pediatrician: call ahead to confirm they’re administering pediatric doses and whether your state requires a prescription.
Don’t wait for the CDC to catch up before deciding. Based on everything reported so far, it may not update its own guidance before flu, COVID, and RSV activity starts rising this fall.

The bottom line

For the first time in most parents’ memory, the federal government isn’t the one answering “should my baby get this vaccine this fall” — four major medical societies are, based on an independent review of the latest evidence, because the CDC’s own process is tied up in litigation. Practically, that means: COVID vaccination is recommended for all infants 6–23 months and available by choice for other kids and teens; RSV immunization recommendations just got broader for some 8–19 month olds; ACOG still recommends COVID vaccination in pregnancy; and none of this is expected to change what your insurance covers or whether your pharmacy can give the shot. The real risk experts are flagging isn’t the vaccines — it’s the confusion of not having one clear federal voice, at the same time vaccination rates are already falling and diseases like measles and whooping cough are resurging. If you take one thing from this: don’t wait for CDC.gov to update before you ask your own pediatrician or OB what they recommend for your specific child or pregnancy this year.

Sources

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The CDC Didn’t Update Its COVID and RSV Guidance This Fall — Here’s What AAP, ACOG, and AAFP Are Telling Parents Instead