The World Health Organization said today that a new COVID variant is causing an uptick in cases around the world, and it's been detected in some states here in the U.S.

The COVID vaccine is expected to provide good protection against the variant, but the news comes after Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced yesterday that the Centers for Disease

Control and Prevention would drop the COVID vaccines from its list of recommended shots for pregnant

women and children. That decision and other recent changes under Kennedy are leading to major

worries and unease among medical and public health groups. Ali Rogan has more.

Omna, many experts are calling the move unprecedented.

Typically, the CDC makes recommendations about who should be vaccinated and when, based

on advice from an advisory committee of experts.

But it's unclear if they were consulted before the announcement.

Joining us to discuss the potential impact of this announcement and wider concerns from

public health experts is Dr. Richard Besser, former acting director of the CDC and now

CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. And we should note the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

is a funder of the News Hour.

Dr. Besser, thank you so much for being here.

I want to take these two categories in turn.

First, pregnant women.

There are many public health experts who are expressing concern that they should absolutely still be getting the vaccine to protect not just themselves, but also their infants.

What are the concerns there?

Yeah, well, thanks for having me on, Allie. It's very concerning. I'm a general pediatrician.

I practiced for more than 30 years. And one of the wonderful things about vaccinations

in pregnant women is it not only protects them,

but it provides protective factors to their babies who often can't get vaccinated

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