COVID-19
COVID-19 vaccine injuries go somewhere else. For now.
They are not in the vaccine court. They are in a separate HHS program called CICP that was built for anthrax and smallpox countermeasures, not for hundreds of millions of doses. Here is the honest comparison.
| Vaccine Court (VICP) | CICP (COVID-19 today) | |
|---|---|---|
| Who decides | Judges (special masters) in a federal court | HHS staff, internally |
| Deadline | 3 years from first symptom | 1 year from the vaccine |
| Attorney fees | Paid by the program, win or lose | Not paid — you pay your own lawyer |
| Hearing / appeal | Hearing, appeal to the court, then to the Federal Circuit | No hearing; one internal reconsideration |
| Pain and suffering | Up to $250,000 | Not compensated at all |
| Lost wages | Uncapped | Capped, and only after other benefits |
| Share of claims compensated | About half of those decided | Under 1% of COVID-19 claims decided |
CICP figures: 10,981 COVID-19 claims filed and 95 compensated as of March 2026 (HRSA data via KFF).
What would change
H.R. 9672, the Vaccine Injury Compensation Modernization Act of 2026, would add COVID-19, RSV, shingles, and dengue vaccines to the vaccine court and transfer pending CICP claims there. That would mean judges, attorney fees, a three-year (proposed five-year) deadline, and pain-and-suffering damages — none of which CICP offers.
Separately, HHS has said it intends to publish a COVID-19 countermeasures injury table, expected around November 2026, which would create presumed injuries within CICP for the first time. Myocarditis after mRNA vaccines is widely expected to be on it.
Status as of August 25, 2026: Introduced — referred to committee. Not yet law. Two earlier versions of the same bill did not advance. We will update this page when either changes.
If you have a COVID-19 vaccine injury today, the one-year CICP deadline still governs. If you are inside it, file. If you are past it, talk to an attorney anyway — if the law changes, having your records organized will matter.
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Whether you are inside CICP's one-year window or waiting on Congress, an attorney can tell you what is worth doing now.