Australia quietly removes COVID-19 vaccination recommendation for children

Sometime around May 2, 2025, the Australian Department of Health quietly removed its recommendation for COVID-19 vaccination in healthy children and adolescents under 18. “The change was tucked into an online update to the Australian Immunisation Handbook—no headline, no ministerial statement, no media campaign to inform the public.”  It states the “benefits of vaccination are not considered to outweigh the potential harms.” [1]

“Australia now joins a growing list of countries backing away from the blanket approach to vaccinating low-risk populations.” [1]

Denmark was the first country to stop recommending the COVID-19 vaccine for healthy children back on April 22, 2022