MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
As the months get cooler, and we head into cold and flu season, it's time to get an updated COVID vaccine, too. Things are playing out differently this year, though. It may be harder for some of us to get the shot. NPR pharmaceuticals correspondent Sydney Lupkin is here to explain. Hi, Sydney.
SYDNEY LUPKIN, BYLINE: Hi.
KELLY: Hi. So what's going on? Everybody can just go out and get their COVID shots or not?
LUPKIN: Yeah. So some people have been able to, no problem, but many others haven't. And that's because there are a bunch of steps that need to happen. The first step is approval by the Food and Drug Administration, which happened last month. However, FDA narrowed the approval to specific groups - people 65 and older and people under 65 who have an increased risk for severe illness. And this season, only the Moderna shot is approved for kids between 6 months and 5 years old.
KELLY: Interesting. So a question relevant to your beat - if the FDA is approving vaccines for fewer people, does that mean the drug companies are making fewer doses?
LUPKIN: Yeah. So none of the vaccine manufacturers would give me exact numbers when I asked. But Pfizer, for example, said it was preparing similar volumes as last year and that it's confident that it will meet demand. It also says millions of doses have already shipped. Claire Hannan is the executive director of the Association of Immunization Managers. She says pharmacies are able to order the shots, and they've been shipped out.
CLAIRE HANNAN: I think the manufacturers, you know, have a good trajectory. They always produce more than is needed. I don't think supply will be an issue. You know, like, there's plenty of supply.
LUPKIN: Moderna and Pfizer both have vaccine-finder websites up and running where you can punch in your ZIP code and see who has the shots near you. The COVID shots Hannan says are not shipping out yet are the ones that are part of the Vaccines for Children Program. About half of kids in the U.S. are eligible for free vaccines this way. That delay is because one of the many steps that I mentioned earlier just hasn't happened yet. It's the meeting of a government panel of experts that makes vaccine recommendations, and that won't happen until next week.
KELLY: And what are we expecting there? Is that panel expected to recommend the vaccines in line with the FDA?
LUPKIN: You know, it's not clear. This was the panel of experts that Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. recently fired and replaced.
KELLY: Aha.
LUPKIN: And it's important because in 13 states, pharmacists can only administer the vaccines recommended by the panel and endorsed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. So right now, people trying to get COVID shots in those states have to get prescriptions from their doctors.
But I want to mention another wrinkle in this whole process, and that's whether insurance will cover the shots. Because if they don't, people are looking at paying full price, which could set you back around $200.
KELLY: And which could make a lot of people think twice. Have insurance companies said what they are going to do here?
LUPKIN: Yeah, so United Healthcare and Aetna are both covering them with no cost-sharing for patients on fully insured plans. And I said to them, OK, even for a healthy 45-year-old person with no underlying conditions, someone not in that narrower FDA approval that we talked about earlier? And they said, yeah, even for that person, the shot should be fully covered. That said, I'm also hearing from some people who say that they need to self-attest to additional health conditions at the pharmacy to get a shot. Even by saying that they had, you know, a desk job and lived a sedentary lifestyle was enough, but it is a bit of a gray zone now.
KELLY: NPR pharmaceuticals correspondent Sydney Lupkin. Thank you.
LUPKIN: You bet.
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