United States: Even though the autumnal equinox is three weeks off, fall’s unofficial start has brought in the new 2024–25 flu vaccines.
As per health experts, the flu virus can affect anyone regardless of the time of the year. The flu, as most people in the US define it, however, occurs in the fall and winter, and it is believed to peak through February, albeit in accordance with the CDC, as fortune.com reported.
Anyone over the age of six who requires only a single dose annually should get their flu vaccination at any time in September or October, according to the CDC.
Your state or local health department may have funded a “vaccine before Halloween” or “flu before boo” campaign to get members of your community ready for November.
Advice from health experts
The CDC advises that all individuals who are six months and above should take the flu shot yearly; there are high-dose and adjuvanted vaccines for elderly people.
According to Dr. Robert Hopkins Jr., medical director of the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases, “For older adults and for folks who’ve got chronic medical problems, I usually recommend getting the flu vaccine around anytime from the middle of September through early October,” as fortune.com reported.
“Because in those of us with immune systems that aren’t quite as robust, we want to make sure that we vaccinate at a time that’s likely to give us immune protection throughout the flu season,” Hopkins Jr. added.
One must administer himself/herself with the flu shot, as vaccination also protects vulnerable members of the community from becoming infected, notes Dr. Michael Ben-Aderet, associate medical director of hospital epidemiology at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.
“Every year in this country, we have thousands and thousands of patients who are hospitalized and die with influenza, and they are particularly older people or people with medical illness,” Ben-Aderet added.
“It is beneficial to those people and everyone else that we get the flu vaccine,” he continued.
Regardless of the time one decides to go for your annual flu shots, keep in mind that it would take up to two weeks for your body to develop immunity against the virus, as fortune.com reported.
Can one get a flu shot at any time of the year?
Seasonal flu activity has reached its peak 17 times in February this year, followed by seven in December and six in January, according to CDC data from 1982–83 through 2021–22 seasons.
However, it had six peaks in March and one in April; while it is not common to have flu peaks in early spring, it does occur now and then.
There is also another fact mentioned by the CDC stating that due to COVID, the predictability of the time and the period of the flu activity has reduced as well.
Hopkins said, “Get it as soon as you can, and it’s not too late,” and “If you’ve got virus circulating in your community, get the vaccine, because that may help reduce the severity of your infection, even if it doesn’t necessarily prevent infection because you got it a little late.”