Why Health Experts Recommend Getting Flu and COVID-19 Shots Together

Schaffner: Flu vaccines in recent years have protected against four different strains of the influenza virus: two influenza A strains and two influenza B strains. We always do that because there’s although there’s a dominant strain, usually there are numerous strains that are circulating.

This year, the influenza vaccine will protect against three strains because one of the B strains has disappeared from the world and has not been detected in two years, so there’s no need to include it in the vaccine anymore. That’s a good thing.

Schaffner: We can all hope for a very mild influenza season, but it’s very hazardous to predict the severity of the upcoming flu season. It’s much easier after the flu season to go back and say how severe it was.

We can look to the Southern Hemisphere — where they have their winter during our summer — but what happens there is not always predictive of what will happen here.

We have included the strains that were active in the Southern Hemisphere this summer in our flu vaccine, and at the moment, it looks as though we have a very good match between what’s in our flu vaccine and what we anticipate the dominant strains will be.

Schaffner: Yes, you have to get both shots, whether in the same arm or the other arm, because the flu vaccine won’t protect against COVID-19, and the COVID vaccine will not protect against the flu.

The recommendations for both vaccines are identical (6 months and older). Both of these vaccines are very important — and that goes for anyone who’s eligible.

Schaffner: I’m always concerned about that because familiarity breeds, if not contempt, a certain nonchalance, and so we have come to accept and live with the annual influenza virus outbreaks.

Those of us in infectious diseases and public health take flu very seriously because we know that this nasty family of viruses can take a normal, healthy young person and put them in the emergency room in the hospital. Within 48 hours, every major hospital in the country sees this sort of thing happening every year.

Yes, most flu in children is mild, and they get over it very easily. But on occasion, a normal, healthy child can be made morbidly, gravely ill.

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) agree 100% with the CDC that children should be vaccinated, and that goes along with adolescents and young and middle-aged adults.

Schaffner: Getting vaccinated against the flu is the most comfortable and reassuring thing you can do to protect yourself against severe disease, but you also protect your family and your community.

Older persons, frail persons, people with underlying chronic medical conditions, and people who are immunocompromised are at the greatest risk for severe disease from the flu.

The flu vaccine is best at preventing severe disease and has some impact on reducing transmission. So if you get the flu vaccine, you will provide some modicum of protection to those around you.

For those who are immune compromised who can’t respond to the vaccine very well because their immune system doesn’t work as well, the best way we can protect them is for everybody else around them to be protected, providing a kind of a cocoon of protection for those who are among the most fragile in our communities.

The CDC’s recommendations for the 2024–25 flu season include two key updates: a return to trivalent flu shots and high dose vaccines for adults receiving organ transplants.

To protect themselves during the winter months, everyone ages 6 months and older should get their flu and COVID shots, ideally at the same time and before the end of October.

Getting vaccinated against the flu and COVID-19 helps prevent severe illness, even in young, healthy individuals.