Illinois committee recommends state part ways with feds on COVID-19 vaccines

Lisa Schencker, Chicago Tribune on Sep 22, 2025

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Illinois health leaders should part ways with the federal government when it comes to COVID-19 vaccines and recommend the shots for all adults and many children, an influential state committee voted Monday.

The Illinois Department of Public Health Immunization Advisory Committee voted unanimously Monday to recommend updated COVID-19 vaccines for all Illinois residents ages 18 and older. And they voted to recommend the shots for all children ages 6 to 23 months old. The committee also recommended vaccines for children between the ages of 2 and 17 if they are in higher risk groups, or if their parents want them to have the shot.

The recommendations aren’t final for Illinois, but the state health department will consider the committee’s votes when releasing its official recommendations for Illinois later this week, said Dr. Sameer Vohra, director of the state health department.

Vohra noted during the meeting Monday that the committee’s discussions this year were “not routine practice for this committee.”

The discussions and votes Monday were necessary because “the federal government is no longer practicing the science-based processes that have guided vaccine based recommendations for decades,” Vohra said.

The recommendations came after Gov. JB Pritzker issued an executive order earlier this month saying that the state health department should advance its own vaccine recommendations “where federal actions fail to protect the public health.”

Illinois is one of a number of states that are issuing their own recommendations when it comes to COVID-19 vaccines this year, after U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., who’s expressed skepticism over vaccines, fired and replaced all the members of the federal Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.

Last week, that federal advisory committee decided to no longer recommend COVID-19 vaccines and to instead leave the decision of whether to get the shots up to individuals. The head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention must still adopt that recommendation before it becomes official.

That federal decision may make it easier for many people to get updated COVID-19 vaccines after months of confusion.

For example, CVS Health expects to stop asking people under 65 seeking COVID-19 vaccine appointments to attest to underlying health conditions, once the federal committee’s recommendation is approved by the CDC director, said spokesperson Amy Thibault.

But members of the Illinois committee went a step further Monday by actively recommending most Illinoisans get the vaccine. The committee also voted to include a recommendation that people who are pregnant, postpartum or lactating be given updated vaccines.

Recommending the vaccine for all adults is important to ensure access to the shots, because COVID-19 is still a threat to people’s health and because the shots have proven safe, committee members said Monday. The committee includes health care professionals and public health leaders.

“I think we can all agree this is still a public health problem,” said committee chair Dr. Marielle Fricchione, with Rush University System for Health, during the meeting.

Committee member Dr. Edward Linn said he didn’t want to limit the vaccine just to people in high-risk groups, because some people may not realize they’re at higher risk until they get severely ill, he said. Plus, lower-risk adults who catch the illness may expose people at higher risk, such as pregnant or immunocompromised individuals, to COVID-19, said Linn, who is chair of Skokie Board of Health.

Pritzker’s executive order this month also said the state would issue a “standing order” in coming weeks allowing pharmacists and other providers to administer vaccines based on Illinois’ recommendations.

The shots should generally be covered by health insurers. Earlier this month, health industry group AHIP said its member health plans would continue to cover all the vaccines that they covered as of Sept. 1, including updated COVID-19 vaccines, through the end of 2026, at no cost to patients, regardless of Friday’s vote.

Many of the nation’s insurers, including Illinois’ largest health insurer, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Illinois, are members of AHIP. UnitedHealthcare of Illinois is not a member of the group, but the insurer said in a statement that it will also continue to cover the vaccines at no cost to patients.

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