The Brief

The Food and Drug Administration approved the next round of COVID-19 vaccines Wednesday, but imposed new restrictions on who's eligible to get receive them.

The agency is limiting the updated shots to people who are at risk for serious complications because they are 65 or older or have other health problems. Until now, COVID vaccines had been available to anyone 6 months and older regardless of their health.

The decision is expected to make it harder for many people, such as healthy children and healthy younger adults, to get a shot ahead of the expected winter COVID surge. That's already generating confusion and apprehension that harkens back to the early days of the pandemic, when people often had to frantically search for a shot.

"I'm feeling a little déjà vu," says Clare Hannan, executive director of the Association of Immunization Managers. "There's a lot of anxiety about being able to get the vaccine."

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is expected to weigh in soon with influential recommendations on who should get inoculated. But the CDC has already dropped guidelines that call for all healthy children and healthy pregnant women to routinely get vaccinated – a decision many doctors and public health experts say is especially alarming.

Federal health officials say the changes are warranted because most people have so much immunity at this point. They also question the vaccines' safety and effectiveness – doubts dismissed by most public health experts and contradicted by a large body of scientific evidence.

A sweeping change to COVID vaccine regulation

"The American people demanded science, safety, and common sense. This framework delivers all three," Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said in a post about the regulatory actions on X.

Kennedy said the FDA has approved Moderna's mRNA vaccine for those ages 6 months and older, the Pfizer-BioNTech mRNA vaccine for those ages 5 and older, and the Novavax vaccine, which uses an older technology, for those ages 12 and older.

"These vaccines are available for all patients who choose them after consulting with their doctors," Kennedy wrote, adding that the emergency use authorizations for the vaccines that made them available quickly during pandemic had been revoked.

"It's a welcome but overdue end to a policy," says David Gortler, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation. "But it is unclear as to why the EUA remained in place at all following full authorization by the FDA and the fact that the COVID emergency officially ended on May 11th 2023 — almost 30 months ago."

Gortler adds, "Although the CDC very recently stopped publishing how many adults and children are still getting the COVID boosters in 2025, at last count it was around 23 million adults and 9.5 million kids, none of whom should be getting any mRNA covid injections."

Access to COVID vaccines could be difficult for many

While many people with concerns about the vaccines welcomed the new restrictions, the limitations could limit access and are being denounced by most public health authorities as unwarranted, unscientific and dangerous.

"I'm worried that this puts the entire American population at risk for severe COVID disease and the complications associated with it," says Dr. Tina Tan of Northwestern University, the president of the Infectious Disease Society of America. "People who are not going to be able to get the vaccine if they want it. And you're going to see an increase in the number of individuals that are hospitalized or that potentially could die."

The moves are the latest in a series of steps Kennedy, a long-time and vocal critic of vaccines, has taken to curtail development and availability of vaccines. He's downplayed the risks of infectious diseases, falsely claimed vaccines are risky, canceled hundreds of millions of dollars of research to develop new mRNA vaccines to protect against future pandemics, replaced a key federal advisory committee with like-minded skeptics, and has threatened to overhaul protections for vaccine makers.

The new restrictions on the updated COVID vaccines, which target the LP.8.1 omicron subvariant, mean insurance may no longer pay for the shots, doctors may balk at stocking and prescribing them, and pharmacists may be unable or unwilling to administer the vaccines.

"The restrictions are not following the science of what these vaccines can and will do," says Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. "This is a disaster waiting to happen."

Risk factors and worries about protection

The announcement comes after the FDA signaled the new approach in the spring. Kennedy soon after announced plans to drop recommendations for vaccinations for children and pregnant women. The moves prompted outrage among public health experts and fear, confusion and anger among people who still want to get vaccinated.

Still, the list of health problems that would make people eligible for the vaccines is very broad. Qualifying risk factors apparently include weak immune systems, asthma, depression, diabetes, high blood pressure and a sedentary lifestyle.

The new vaccine rules come as a consensus was emerging among government and independent scientists that routine vaccination may no longer be necessary for some people, such as healthy younger adults and older children because so many have built up strong immunity.

Nevertheless, the moves prompted major medical groups like the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and independent expert groups like the Vaccine Integrity Project, to issue their own scientific assessments and guidelines. Those continue to recommend the shots for all pregnant people and all very young children, who are as likely as older adults to get seriously ill from COVID.

"I'm worried," says Dr. Sean O'Leary, a pediatric infectious disease expert at the University of Colorado who chairs the pediatric association's committee on infectious diseases. "It's clear the youngest kids remain at very high risk. So it's very important to keep recommending the vaccine to those kids."

Newborn babies face an especially high risk, O'Leary says, because they have little or no immunity. The best way to protect them is to vaccinate women during their pregnancies so they can pass protective antibodies to their fetuses. Pregnant women are themselves at high risk for serious complications as well.

"It's heartbreaking," says Dr. Lakshmi Panagiotakopoulos, a former CDC vaccine expert. "I honestly believe this will do harm to the American public."

Adding to the confusion is the fact that although the CDC is no longer recommending the vaccines for healthy pregnant women. The agency and the FDA's new framework both still list pregnancy as a risk factor.

Trade groups representing insurance companies have said their members plan to continue paying for the shots even though they're no longer required to in all cases because of the current CDC recommendations. It remains unclear, however, how many individual insurers will still broadly cover the vaccines.

Most people have stopped getting vaccinated and most parents don't inoculate their kids. But many younger, healthy adults still want a shot because they're worried about getting sick, missing work, developing long COVID or spreading the virus to vulnerable family members.

"And my feeling is those healthy young adults should have the freedom to discuss this option, to consider it with their health care providers, and even if they don't have health conditions should have the freedom to get vaccinated," says Dr. Jesse Goodman, a former FDA vaccine regulator now at Georgetown University.

Many parents also want the choice to vaccinate their otherwise healthy children for the same reasons.

People who are not officially eligible for the vaccines may still be able to get the shots for themselves or their children by getting a doctor's prescription and paying out of pocket. But that may create insurmountable barriers for many people. The COVID shots can cost $200 or more without insurance, getting a doctor's appointment can be difficult for vaccination can be difficult..

In addition, many doctors may be hesitant to prescribe the shots beyond the FDA approval, also known as off-label use, and many pharmacists may be unable or uneasy about administering the vaccines because of state restrictions and liability concerns. Nineteen states require pharmacists to follow the CDC's guidelines, according to the American Pharmacists Association. The rules vary in the remaining states.

Even if pregnant women and others can get vaccinated, many public health experts worry the conflicting recommendations and messages could dissuade many people from trying, exacerbating the already low rates of vaccination.

"We know that when people are confused they don't act and my concern is that a lot of people who would benefit from COVID vaccination are not going to get it because they are just not sure what they should be doing," says Dr. Kelly Moore, who heads Immunize.org, an advocacy group.

The changes come as the U.S. is in the midst of yet another summer COVID wave, which has caused a surge of children requiring emergency care at hospitals and is claiming more than 100 lives weekly.
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An East Hollywood nursing home that nearly lost its license this year because of repeated state citations for deaths of residents at the facility was cited again last month after another person died.

The California Department of Public Health cited Brier Oak on Sunset after a 92-year-old resident bled to death on Sept. 27. Staff members had continued injecting her with blood thinners over a 40-hour period in violation of clinical guidelines.

It’s an AA citation, the most severe the department issues when violations of care standards are determined to be a substantial factor in someone’s death. The facility faces a $120,000 fine.

These kinds of citations are rare. The department has recently issued, on average, fewer than 20 AA citations yearly across more than 1,200 skilled nursing facilities in California.

Brier Oak has received three AA citations for patient deaths since late 2022.

State regulations require authorities to suspend or revoke the licenses of any facilities that get two AA citations within a period of 24 months.

The state Public Health Department began that process with Brier Oak in May based on resident deaths in 2022 and 2024. But officials dropped that effort later because they say they determined the two patient deaths had occurred 26 months apart — just outside of the two-year window.

A spokesperson for the company that owns Brier Oak told LAist it has appealed the first two citations and is considering whether to appeal the third.

Advocates for nursing home residents say the recent death could have been avoided if the state had taken action.

“There were red flags, and a lot of these red flags existed prior to the death of this poor resident,” said Tony Chicotel, senior staff attorney with  California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform.

The state said Brier Oak has until Dec. 19 to notify the department if it intends to appeal.

What led to the patient deaths?

In the recent death at Brier Oak cited by the state, multiple communication and technical failures by nursing staff led to the patient bleeding out over a period of 40 hours, according to the citation.

The 92-year-old patient was immobile and had been prescribed a blood thinner called heparin to help prevent blood clots from forming. But once a patient is bleeding, those injections make bleeding worse, and potentially fatal.

When nursing staff found bright red blood in the resident’s diaper the day before she died, Brier Oak failed to follow established processes for documenting the bleeding or communicating it to a nurse practitioner or medical doctor, according to the citation.

Nurses told state authorities they delayed informing physicians because they “get mad” when contacted in the middle of the night.

The facility’s staff also failed to fully assess the patient to determine the possible causes of the bleeding and or to properly monitor the issue during crucial periods, according to the citation.

She suffered four internal bleeding episodes over 40 hours and continued to receive blood thinner injections.

The citation says a nurse practitioner at Brier Oak told state licensing authorities later that if she’d been informed about the patient’s ongoing bleeding, she would have stopped the blood thinner and sent her to a hospital.

In 2022, Brier Oak received a AA citation after a 62-year-old woman died from respiratory failure in part because nurses hadn’t been trained to operate her breathing machine.

In 2024, the nursing home got another AA citation. This time, a 63-year-old woman with paraplegia and severe obesity fell from her bed and died while a nursing assistant was changing her. The assistant was alone, even though the woman’s care plan required two staff members.

Who owns Brier Oak?

Brier Oak on Sunset is primarily owned by Genesis Healthcare, a publicly-traded nursing home operator that filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in July.

Once the largest nursing home operator in the U.S., Genesis was facing billions in debt when it declared bankruptcy, according to court filings. That includes millions in potential damages from lawsuits related to patient care failures.

In a brief statement to LAist, a company spokesperson said it's still considering whether or not to appeal the recent citation at Brier Oak.

The citation should trigger a suspension or revocation of the facility's license, according to state regulations. The latter means it would have to close its doors. The two most recent deaths and citations at the facility occurred within the two-year window.

The California Department of Public Health confirmed it cited Brier Oak on Nov. 26.

The department said the facility submitted a required written response before a Dec. 6 deadline, showing how it will fix the problems and prevent them from happening again..

The department determined Brier Oak was back in compliance during an onsite visit last week, a representative told LAist.

Brier Oak on Sunset currently houses about 150 patients, according to state records.

A bankruptcy judge has stalled the proposed sale of Genesis Healthcare to an affiliate of one of its investors.

Experts say it’s unclear whether the state would revoke the license of an owner who is actively trying to sell and turn over operations to someone else.

It’s been a rough start to ski and snowboard season for California mountain towns. Snowfall is well below average, but Christmas could come with some of the white stuff. Here's where things stand:

Hmmm. Didn’t we just have a record storm?

Yes. That big atmospheric river that hit Southern California last month made it one of the wettest Novembers on records. But since then, it’s been unusually warm and dry, which is not good for mountain towns that depend on snow, and the outdoor enthusiasts that flock to them.

How bad is it?

California’s snowpack is about 20% of normal for this time of the year, according to the state’s snow-tracking website. Southern California isn’t quite as bad off — we’ve gotten about half our normal snowfall so far.

As for the resorts, only about 20% of the terrain at Bear Mountain in Big Bear is open. About 35% of Mammoth Mountain is open.

Can’t they just make snow?

They are, but the unusually warm temperatures have curbed resorts’ ability to make enough snow to open more terrain. “If you're blowing water into 40-degrees, it's going to stay water,” said Justin Kanton, a spokesperson for Big Bear Mountain Resort. “ So as much as people probably would want us to just crank the snow guns all day, every day up here and just get things moving, that's not really possible.”

But there’s a silver lining!

The dry weather has allowed Caltrans to make good progress toward opening Highway 38, said Evan Engle, who chairs the board of the Big Bear Chamber of Commerce. The road typically handles up to 40% of traffic up to the mountain town, Engle said. But it’s been closed since September when it got washed out by Tropical Storm Mario.

Getting it open as soon as possible is key to keeping visitor traffic manageable, and getting supplies to Big Bear.

What’s the snow outlook?

SoCal mountains are likely to see some precipitation around Christmas, said Kyle Wheeler, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service. But with temperatures not expected to drop much, it’s uncertain how much of it will be white, Wheeler said.

If you go to Big Bear: 

• If you plan to hit the slopes, get on it early, when the snow is at its best given the warm conditions. 
• No snow? There’s more to do than ski and snowboard. Check this list of winter fun events.  
• Worried about traffic? Consider going up earlier in the week. If you can’t do that, consider taking Highway 18 through Lucerne Valley. It’s a longer route if you’re coming from L.A., but less traveled, and less likely to make you car sick (fewer tight curves). 

The Los Angeles Police Department used more than 2,400 crowd control munitions in response to protests from June 6 to 14, according to a new report.

Officers used a total of 2,431 less-lethal projectile rounds and 35 canisters of tear gas over the nine days, according to LAPD reports. The department recorded 12 injuries officers caused with those weapons.

The LAPD released the missing report last week after LAist identified the use of crowd control weapons on four different days in June that had not been reported according to state law. Assembly Bill 48, which went into effect in 2022, limits when and how crowd control weapons can be used, and requires law enforcement agencies to publicly release reports on their use within 60 days.

A 30-day extension for these reports can be granted in some cases, but the LAPD released this report about three months late even if an extension was justified.

Officials acknowledged they were out of compliance on Dec. 10 before releasing the report, saying the delay “stems from the extraordinary volume and complexity of incidents” over that time.

This report is different from others

It is unusual for a crowd control report to include more than one day, and the report for June 9 through 14 covered six days and “45 sepearte [sic] non categorical use of force incidents.”

It does not describe any of those use of force incidents specifically, and the LAPD has not yet responded to LAist’s request for more detailed descriptions of those incidents.

The report also considered the entire six days to have been one continuous protest, though it included several anti-ICE protests over the week and the national “No Kings” protest on June 14.

Two reports released earlier this year for June 6 and 8 covered single days and provided more detailed descriptions of incidents where the LAPD used less-lethal munitions against protesters.