(TNND) -- Doctors are standing up for the COVID-19 vaccine after U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced the government would stop recommending the shots for healthy children and pregnant women.

"Everybody should probably talk to their doctor to try to determine what makes the most sense for them. And then, having said that, the vaccine is still the best way to protect yourself against severe infection, severe outcomes and death," Dr. S. Wesley Long, medical director of microbiology at Houston Methodist said Wednesday. "That remains true."

Kennedy said the COVID vaccine was being removed from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's immunization schedule for kids and pregnant women.

There's been no official word on the changes from the CDC.

Kennedy made the announcement in a social media video on Tuesday, flanked by the Food and Drug Administration commissioner and the National Institutes of Health director.

"Last year, the Biden administration urged healthy children to get yet another COVID shot, despite the lack of any clinical data to support the repeat booster strategy in children," Kennedy said in the video.

The American Lung Association said COVID is still a significant public health threat and expressed concern that insurers could drop financial support for the vaccines without government recommendations.

The Lung Association said there have been hundreds of thousands of COVID hospitalizations since the fall and more than 10,000 deaths so far this year.

Dr. David Hill, the chair of the American Lung Association board of directors, said Kennedy is short-circuiting the typical process in which an expert advisory panel develops the vaccine recommendations for the CDC.

Those expert advisers are set to meet next month.

"This is not a scientifically based decision," Hill said.

And he said the change announced by Kennedy isn't in the best interest of public health.

"There's a new variant that's currently circulating in the U.S. that seems to spread more easily and has been associated with increased hospitalizations overseas already," Hill said. "As a pulmonary and critical care physician who has been caring for COVID patients in the ICU for the last five years, COVID hasn't gone away. And taking away the ability for healthy people to get vaccinated doesn't make sense from a medical standpoint."

The American Academy of Pediatrics and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists also spoke out against removing the COVID vaccine from the list of recommended immunizations.

The American Academy of Pediatrics said that over 11,000 children were hospitalized with COVID during the last respiratory virus season.

Long said COVID shots aren't really considered "boosters" any longer.

"It's very analogous to the annual flu shot," he said.

Both Hill and Long said COVID shots are safe and effective.

"If you think about the vaccines, they've now been given worldwide to millions of people multiple times, been studied very extensively, and all indications are that they're safe and effective and far less risky than getting the infection in general itself," Long said.

Both said it's important for healthy people to get annual immunizations to protect others, especially those who might be immunocompromised.

Long said getting the COVID vaccine helps "stack the deck in their favor in terms of avoiding severe outcomes and severe illness."

Hill said misinformation about COVID vaccines has already throttled uptake, and he's concerned this announcement from Kennedy will only muddy the waters.

And both doctors said fewer people will get the shot if it becomes more expensive or harder to get due to this change from the government.