For children, yes, the CDC’s “shared decision-making” guidance preserves the status quo in which Medicaid and U.S. health-insurance companies are legally required to pay for the COVID vaccines. That also means the vaccines will remain available to low-income kids through the federal Vaccines for Children program.

As promised, federal health officials this week dropped longstanding recommendations that healthy children and healthy pregnant women should get the COVID-19 vaccines.

Makary was accurate when he said that "most countries have stopped recommending" routine COVID-19 vaccination for children.