Three Shots for Fall: What to Know about the Covid Booster Shot, Flu Vaccine and the RSV Vaccine
Key Takeaways
· Flu and RSV vaccines will be available for certain groups starting in September.
· Timing Matters. Flu shot protection wanes over the season, but RSV protection does not.
· While an updated COVID vaccine is coming, there are no official recommendations for COVID booster timing or eligibility yet.
Most Americans have had one or more shots of the flu and Covid vaccines. New this year are the first shots to protect older adults and infants from respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), a lesser-known threat whose toll in hospitalizations and deaths may rival that of flu.
This month, pharmacies and doctors’ offices will begin offering the 2023-2024 flu vaccines. Now, certain people will be able to receive another shot for respiratory illness, the brand-new RSV vaccine.
Here’s what you need to know about both vaccines, and how the potential new COVID boosters later this fall could come into play for your vaccination schedule, too.
In the U.S., flu season begins in October and can last as late as May. Pharmacies including Walgreens and CVS are beginning to stock the flu shot. You can make an appointment on the pharmacy websites.
Which Flu Vaccine Should You Get?
For people younger than 65, the CDC does not recommend any one flu vaccine over another. People 65 and older, however, should get a higher-dose flu shot for better protection. Those include Fluzone High-Dose Quadrivalent vaccine, Flublok Quadrivalent flu vaccine, and Fluad Quadrivalent flu vaccine.
RSV Vaccine
Respiratory Syncytial virus (RSV) is a common virus that usually causes mild, cold like symptoms. Most people recover in a week or two. But older adults are more likely to develop severe RSV and need hospitalization. Adults age 60 and older are eligible for an RSV shot, and the CDC recommends discussing vaccination with a doctor first.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently approved the first-ever RSV vaccines. Both Abrysvo, made by Pfizer, and Arexvy, made by GlaxoSmithKline, will be available in doctors’ offices and pharmacies. Walgreens has already announced that people can start scheduling their RSV vaccine appointments now.
Yes, you can get both the flu and RSV vaccines at the same time.
“If the only time you can get the shots is at the same time, you should get them at the same time,” Amesh Adalja, MD, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security and an infectious disease specialist. “It would be ideal to get injections in different arms but anticipate more side effects such as arm soreness, fatigue, and malaise with coadministration.”
What about COVID Boosters?
The first new COVID-19 vaccines updated for this fall season are now expected to be available by the end of September, once both the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention sign off on the new shots. The new shots are designed to target the XBB variants — strains of the virus descended from the original Omicron variant — which are now the most common form in circulation.
Three vaccine manufacturers, Moderna, Pfizer and Novavax, are expected to offer the revised shots for this fall, which virtually all children and adults will be eligible for.
While the new vaccines are expected to be ready by late September, it could be October before they're widely available for everyone who wants them. For teens and adults, Americans would have their pick of any of the three updated vaccines.
"The intent is to harmonize for all doses, all ages, same composition. So, in the fall, that would be the 2023-2024 formula, would be an XBB.1.5," the FDA's Dr. David Kaslow said in June at the CDC meeting.
It is also important that all transplant recipients should check with their doctor or transplant team about which vaccine is the best one for each person.
· From in part: www.verywellhealth.com August 14, 2023, and CBS News, August 9, 2023.