Can the Flu Shot and COVID-19 Booster be Taken at the Same Time?

As the flu season (influenza, caused by rhinovirus) arrives, people all around the world raise concerns if they can get the flu shot and COVID-19 booster at the same time. Experts certify that it is equally important to consider flu shots.

Moreover, this year, the flu vaccine matches the viral strains that are currently circulating, although it is difficult to predict how that could change.

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‘As the rhinovirus sets in the trend of flu to be worse this year, people raise concerns if they could get the flu shot and COVID-19 booster at the same time. ’

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Lori Rolando, assistant professor of clinical medicine, and director of the Occupational Health Clinic at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, shares the latest guidance on when to get the flu shot and the COVID-19 booster shot. Both can be received simultaneously or with no wait time between the vaccines.

Flu Shot and Covid-19 Booster

If the booster shot is not yet recommended for your demographic, it is important to get the flu shot before the end of October and the booster when it becomes available or recommended.

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Whereas, if a booster shot is available, “it is OK to get a flu shot and a Covid-19 vaccine on the same day but in different arms, or at least an inch apart if in the same arm” as per the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

“Other than maybe making your arm more sore or having two arms that are sore, there’s not a whole lot of interaction between the two of them. We know from other vaccines that generally giving them together is fine,” says Rachel Presti, an infectious-disease physician at Washington University in St. Louis. She has had patients get both vaccines on the same day.

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Arrival of Flu Season

Last year, the flu cases were suppressed by Covid-19 precautions. However public-health officials expect a tough flu season to return this season with lower lingering protection from fewer flu cases last year and higher levels of other viruses this year.

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Doctors also recommend that Pfizer’s upcoming vaccine authorization in children (5 to 11 years old) may pose a good opportunity for them to be vaccinated for even the flu.

“We have so many combination vaccines, and they are really well tolerated. Little infants are given many vaccines on the same day. It is completely safe. The immune system can handle it,” says Suzanne Kaseta, chief medical officer of Boston Children’s Health Physicians, multi-specialty pediatric practice with about 60 offices in New York and Connecticut.

However, there are certain difficulties that linger upon the annual challenges of flu vaccine especially because it is hard to predict the notoriously mutating flu virus’ strains in the coming season.

Nevertheless, experts believe that getting a shot is always useful because it provides protection for various strains that often circulate together, and thereby diminish the severity of the illness. Antiviral drugs (if started early) alongside may also help reduce the symptoms and severity of flu.

Source-Medindia