The 2024-25 vaccine for COVID-19 was available to most everyone 6 months and older in Michigan, whether they chose to get it or not.
That may not be the case next year.
On Tuesday, May 20, the Trump administration said it would limit approval for seasonal COVID shots to seniors and those with at least one high-risk health problem.
It wasn't clear if otherwise low-risk people would still be eligible, or if the move would affect how insurers cover the next booster.
Michigan's vaccine uptake has fallen off in recent years.
Related: Trump officials set new requirements for COVID vaccines in healthy adults and children
About 63% of residents have gotten at least one dose since the start of the pandemic. For the 2024-25 dose, just 12.2% of the population has been vaccinated, of which 54% were age 65 and older.
Comparatively, about 25.7% of residents got the 2024-25 flu shot, marking the lowest uptake in at least five years.
State health officials said they continue to urge all residents to use the tools available to them, including testing and getting vaccinated, against COVID-19 and other respiratory viruses -- if they are eligible.
"We encourage Michiganders with questions to consult their health care provider," said MDHHS spokesperson Lynn Sutfin. She didn't further address questions about future vaccine eligibility.
The benefits of repeat dosing of COVID-19 vaccines, particularly among low-risk people with prior COVID infections or vaccine doses, is uncertain, according to U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) leaders who published their framework Tuesday in the New England Journal of Medicine.
FDA officials will call for randomized, controlled trial data evaluating clinical outcomes for otherwise healthy people before approval is given for the general public.
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FDA leaders Dr. Vinay Prasad and Dr. Martin Makary called the previous U.S. policy a one-size-fits-all regulatory framework.
"The U.S. policy has sometimes been justified by arguing that the American people are not sophisticated enough to understand age- and risk-based recommendations," Prasad and Makary wrote. "We reject this view."
They said the new COVID-19 philosophy represents a balance of regulatory flexibility and a commitment to gold-standard science.
"These clinical trials will inform future directions for the FDA, but more important, they will provide information that is desperately craved by health care providers and the American people," Prasad and Makary wrote.
Nationally, less than 25% of Americans receive a COVID-19 booster shot each year. The most common age group to get follow-up shots has been those 75 and older.
Conditions that would increase a person's risk of severe COVID-19 and thus would fall under the proposed eligibility criteria include:
Dr. Paul Offit, a vaccine expert at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, said CDC studies have made clear that booster doses do offer protection against mild to moderate illness for four to six months after the shot, even in healthy people, as reported by AP.
The CDC continues to report hundreds of provisional COVID-19 deaths per week, including 210 the week ending May 3 and 284 the week ending April 26.
Michigan had more than 260 such deaths between January and February 2025, according to provisional state data.