The COVID Reckoning Begins: RFK Jr. Ends Vaccine Mandates Leading to 'Bloodbath' at CDC

"Now, the reckoning has begun. The EUA is gone. The mandates are over. And the federal health bureaucracy is undergoing the most significant overhaul in decades."

In a sweeping move that may mark the official end of the COVID-19 emergency era, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. recently announced that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has rescinded the emergency use authorizations (EUAs) for COVID-19 vaccines.

The fallout was immediate: A “bloodbath” at the CDC.

The announcement, made with little fanfare but massive implications, comes after years of political battles, scientific debates, and public frustration over sweeping mandates that affected nearly every aspect of American life.

Kennedy posted the news on X, formerly Twitter, writing:

“I promised 4 things: 1. to end covid vaccine mandates. 2. to keep vaccines available to people who want them, especially the vulnerable. 3. to demand placebo-controlled trials from companies. 4. to end the emergency.”

He added,

“In a series of FDA actions today we accomplished all four goals. The emergency use authorizations for Covid vaccines, once used to justify broad mandates on the general public during the Biden administration, are now rescinded.”

The move is significant not just for what it says about COVID policy, but for what it says about how this administration views the federal government's role in medical decisions. Rather than continuing to treat COVID-19 as a pandemic emergency requiring broad public health mandates, the HHS under Kennedy is shifting toward a patient-doctor model, where individuals — especially those in higher-risk categories — can still choose to get vaccinated, but only after medical consultation.

The days of walk-in pharmacy shots, mass clinics, and workplace mandates may now be firmly in the rearview mirror.

This marks a 180-degree pivot from the federal approach under former President Biden, when COVID-19 vaccine mandates were implemented across large swaths of society: military personnel, healthcare workers, federal contractors, and even private businesses with more than 100 employees were pressured to comply under threat of job loss. Those mandates were defended as necessary to save lives during the height of the pandemic, but they were also met with fierce resistance, protests, and legal challenges that reached all the way to the Supreme Court.

According to Kennedy, the FDA has now granted full marketing authorization — rather than emergency authorization — to specific vaccines for high-risk groups: Moderna for those aged six months and older, Pfizer for individuals five years and older, and Novavax for those aged twelve and up.

But instead of being pushed through pharmacies and government portals, these vaccines will require physician oversight. That means Americans will now need a prescription to receive a COVID-19 shot, adding a new layer of discretion and medical judgment that critics say was sorely lacking during the mandate-heavy years of the pandemic.

The policy change arrives amid a surprising exodus from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which experienced a wave of resignations following the departure of CDC Director Susan Monarez.

Monarez’s exit, less than one month into her tenure, came without explanation. While the Department of Health and Human Services has not confirmed whether she was fired or voluntarily stepped down, multiple reports claim she was removed — potentially as part of a broader overhaul of public health leadership.

Four senior CDC officials followed her out the door, including Dr. Debra Houry, the agency’s Chief Medical Officer; Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, Director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases; Dr. Daniel Jernigan, Director of the National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases; and Dr. Jen Layden, Director of the Office of Public Health Data, Surveillance and Technology.

Houry, in a pointed resignation letter obtained by The Hill, wrote:

“For the good of the nation and the world, the science at CDC should never be censored or subject to political paused or interpretations. Vaccines save lives — this is an indisputable, well-established, scientific fact.”

She went on to blame the spread of what she called “misinformation” for a resurgence in vaccine-preventable diseases and even a “violent attack” on the agency.

But from the administration’s perspective, the resignations may reflect the necessary consequences of restoring credibility and transparency to public health agencies that lost the public's trust during the pandemic. Kennedy himself has long been a vocal critic of Big Pharma and the CDC’s cozy relationship with vaccine manufacturers, and his appointment to HHS raised eyebrows on both sides of the aisle. But President Trump stood by the decision, arguing that Kennedy’s role was not to lead a political agenda but to clean up the bureaucratic rot that had corroded institutions like the CDC and FDA during COVID.

Wednesday’s announcement delivers on that promise in spades. The rescinding of emergency use authorizations not only reflects a new scientific assessment of the virus’s risk profile — particularly for the healthy and young — but also symbolically ends a dark chapter in American public health policy.

It was the EUA framework that allowed vaccines to bypass standard multi-year testing protocols. It was the EUA that provided liability shields to vaccine manufacturers. And it was the EUA that gave legal cover to government mandates that divided families, ruined careers, and triggered massive litigation.

While some public health experts expressed concern that the new model — requiring doctor prescriptions for COVID shots — could reduce uptake, Kennedy and others argue that the goal should never have been maximizing compliance, but ensuring informed consent. The FDA’s updated guidance still allows access for those who need or want it, but on a far more personal and transparent basis.

This new framework also coincides with other sweeping policy changes. The American Academy of Pediatrics recently diverged from CDC guidance, recommending COVID vaccines for children ages six months to two years — raising questions about whether doctors will prescribe these shots at all for healthy young children, especially with no ongoing emergency authorization in place. It also remains unclear whether insurance providers will continue covering the cost of the shots under the new rules.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration recently pulled federal funding for the development of new mRNA vaccines — a sign that the political appetite for biotech-driven pandemic management has waned considerably. And for the first time since early 2021, there will be no blanket federal vaccine recommendation going into the fall and winter months.

No mandates. No marketing blitz. No “hot vax summer” slogans. Just personal responsibility — and consequences.

Critics of the move will undoubtedly claim that political motives, not science, are behind the changes. But Kennedy’s team insists the opposite. They argue that ending the EUA and demanding placebo-controlled trials for new products is precisely how scientific rigor is restored.

The public, after all, was asked to trust an opaque system that seemed to change its message daily — masks don’t work, then they do; vaccines stop transmission, then they don’t.

At every turn, dissenting views were ridiculed, suppressed, or censored entirely.

Now, the reckoning has begun. The EUA is gone. The mandates are over. And the federal health bureaucracy is undergoing the most significant overhaul in decades.

The American people were told to follow the science. Now, RFK Jr. is restoring science to its proper place in the federal bureaucracy — not as a tool for coercion, but as a basis for healthy skepticism.