Six major US medical organisations issued joint recommendations on Wednesday 2 September 2026 that the vast majority of people should be vaccinated against influenza, COVID-19 and respiratory syncytial virus, known as RSV. The guidance is intended to fill the gap left by the Trump administration's failure to issue updated recommendations as the flu season approaches.
The American Medical Association, American Academy of Family Physicians, American Academy of Pediatrics, American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, Infectious Diseases Society of America and the University of Minnesota's Vaccine Integrity Project released the advice. The groups recommend vaccines more broadly than current federal policy, particularly for COVID-19.
The groups support routine COVID vaccination for healthy younger adults, young children and pregnant people. Current federal advice does not recommend routine vaccination for those populations.
The recommendations arrive after a 2025–2026 respiratory virus season in the US in which an estimated 15,000 to 42,000 people died of COVID and up to 240,000 people were hospitalised with the disease. The consortium released summaries of research on vaccine safety and efficacy in the Journal of the American Medical Association and online alongside the guidance.
Independent analyses released Wednesday found that the latest COVID-19, flu and RSV vaccines remain very safe and highly effective at protecting people from severe complications from the potentially life-threatening respiratory viruses. COVID vaccines cut the risk of hospitalisation by 53 percent for adults older than age 65, according to the evidence summaries. They reduce the risk of hospitalisation for pregnant women by 58 percent.
Bruce Gellin, a member of the Vaccine Integrity Project's board of advisers and an adjunct professor at Georgetown University, said the federal government “is not fulfilling that responsibility in the way that it historically has.” The administration has remained silent on updated vaccination recommendations. It is unknown whether it plans to issue further guidance.
The American Academy of Family Physicians recommends that all adults 19 years and older receive one of the updated COVID vaccines. It also recommends that adults ages 65 and older receive a second COVID vaccine dose six months after the initial shot.
The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists urges COVID vaccination for pregnant women and for people considering pregnancy or breastfeeding. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends COVID vaccination for all infants and children ages 6 months through 23 months.
The updated COVID vaccines received Food and Drug Administration approval on 27 August. On Tuesday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, known as the CDC, extended the 2025 recommendations for flu vaccines to this year.
People ages 50 and older will this year be able to receive a new type of flu shot using the same messenger ribonucleic acid, or mRNA, technology as COVID vaccines. The Vaccines for Children Program, which provides vaccines free to about half of US children, is still expected to supply them.
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