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This year there are three vaccines to help keep you and your loved ones safer from the triad of dangerous respiratory viruses that start spreading during the colder months—influenza, COVID and RSV.
Heath Perdue is a Registered Nurse and Infection Preventionist for Prowers Medical Center. It’s his job to help keep the Lamar-area community as protected as possible from these infectious diseases. In this Spotlight, he shares information on the three vaccines and why it’s wise to get vaccinated now to safeguard you and your family all winter long.
The Flu Vaccine
The flu vaccine helps prevent people from catching and passing on influenza, commonly known as the flu, to their friends, family and coworkers. It also reduces the severity of the illness for those who do get sick.
You need a flu vaccination each year because the shot wears off fairly quickly. And as always, this year’s flu shot is formulated to protect against the most current prevalent strains of the virus.
The Updated COVID Vaccine.
As with the flu vaccine, COVID vaccines are now falling into an annual cycle of updates. As the virus itself mutates, the vaccine is updated to offer protection against the latest variants. The new COVID vaccines target the XBB.1.5 subvariant but have also proven effective against the even more recent BA.2.86 variant.
The CDC recommends that everyone aged 6 months and up receive the updated COVID vaccine. Anyone who is moderately to severely immunocompromised, as well as those with chronic conditions that might prevent them from making a quick recovery from a COVID infection, should especially consider getting the updated COVID vaccine right away. Those conditions include asthma, COPD, CHF, emphysema, hypertension, diabetes and other issues affecting the cardiopulmonary or immune systems.
Due to the end of the official COVID Public Health Emergency, the COVID vaccine is no longer free to everyone but is still covered by most private and public insurances.
It’s Flu Shot Time!
The CDC recommends that with rare exceptions, everyone 6 months and older should receive an influenza vaccination every year.
The flu vaccine protects against serious illness, hospitalization and death.
If you get your shot now, you’ll be protected all winter long.
Flu vaccines are available on a walk-in basis. To schedule appointments for COVID and RSV vaccines, please call 719-336-6767.
Flu vaccines are available on a walk-in basis. To schedule appointments for COVID and RSV vaccines, please call 719-336-6767.
The New RSV Vaccine.
For most adolescents and adults, RSV, or respiratory syncytial virus, is very similar to the common cold. With the elderly and very young, though, it can be a life-threatening illness. Infants’ airways are proportionately much smaller than in adults, and therefore more susceptible to complications from inflammation and mucus plugging.
It’s recommended that adults over 60 and pregnant people receive one of the two new RSV vaccines. For infants under 8 months and whose mothers didn’t receive the RSV vaccine two weeks or more before the birth, a monoclonal antibody shot is available.
Ask your primary-care provider if the RSV vaccines are right for you or family members.
The Upshot
If you haven’t yet had your fall vaccines, now’s the time. The sooner you have them on board, the better protected you and our community will be from now through spring.
“For most people, vaccines are safe and effective,” Perdue said. “There is a tremendous amount of research, study and trials that occur prior to the approval of any vaccine.”
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