CDC Now Recommending Multiple COVID Booster Doses Per Year

The CDC's credibility has been running on fumes over the past few years, to put it mildly. 

Their recommendations on every single aspect of major COVID policy have been a disastrous failure, starting in spring 2020. It's no secret by now that their recommendation on masking was influenced by, quite literally, a New York Times article. It's also no secret that their director openly misled millions of people and influenced life-changing vaccine mandate policies by claiming the vaccines were 100% effective and stopped the spread of infection.

Then there are the boosters. Oh the boosters. 

As the vaccines were clearly failing to prevent the spread of the virus in fall 2021, the CDC, its advisory committees and outside "experts" decided to recommend an extra dose of COVID vaccines. Without any evidence that the boosters would help.

As those boosters failed to gain traction or have any demonstrable impact on the curve of viral transmission. The CDC, instead of changing course, doubled down. Then tripled down. Then quadrupled down. Then quintupled down. All with no admission that their previous recommendations had repeatedly shown to be a laughable farce. 

READ: No One Is Getting The New COVID Booster, Despite Relentless CDC Promotion

And now they're at it again.

Dr. Mandy Cohen, secretary of the state Department of Health and Human Services, speaks during a briefing on the coronavirus pandemic at the Emergency Operations Center in Raleigh, North Carolina, on May 26, 2020. (Ethan Hyman/The Raleigh News & Observer/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)

CDC Now Recommending Two Boosters Per Year

It may come as a surprise given their outstanding performance during the pandemic, but the CDC is back yet again with another evidence-free recommendation. 

Even as COVID recedes and hospitalizations fall from an already low winter peak, the CDC is now telling those over the age of 65 that they should get not one, but two boosters per year. That's right; one booster in the spring and another in the fall. 

Remember when being fully vaccinated meant you'd received two doses total in 2020 or early 2021? Yeah, that was a long, LONG time ago. This latest recommendation now means the CDC has technically authorized nine vaccination doses since the original release just three and a half years ago. Nine doses. 

If you're wondering how that's remotely justifiable, it isn't. Especially because the fall boosters had anemic uptake, thanks in large part to being targeted to a variant that had already stopped circulating. And in the other part because it'd been tested on eight mice before being released to the public. 

It's a monumental failure of evidence-based medicine and public health communication that the CDC pushed those boosters on the public. And an even bigger failure that they're following it up by recommending spring boosters now.

What Are They Even Thinking? 

What is the CDC even hoping to accomplish here? What's the point of a spring booster dose? Whatever marginal protection may exist from a booster targeted to an extinct variant wanes within months. We've seen over the past few years that summer surges in the south are part of seasonal transmission, but by that time, that marginal protection will have entirely disappeared. 

It was an embarrassing admission of defeat that boosters even became initial policy in 2021, but at the very least there could be some infinitesimal bit of logic in pushing for fall shots ahead of the winter season. But spring too? As COVID becomes even less of a focus in most people's lives? 

The CDC is increasingly desperate. Desperate to maintain the relevance they gained thanks to media attention during the pandemic, and desperate to avoid admitting defeat on their vaccination policy. They won't simply move on, accept the good news that COVID is no longer a serious threat and doesn't require endless, reoccurring out of date boosting. 

So here we are in March 2024 and the CDC is telling the public that in just a few short years, elder adults won't be considered "up to date" on their COVID vaccines unless they've received 20 doses. Pfizer and Moderna must be thrilled.