United States: It’s respiratory virus season in the USA and health officials say October is the time to get vaccinated. Covid-19, flu and RSV vaccines are available. Although the respiratory virus season mainly falls from December to March, getting the vaccine early enough in fall will help the body build immunity to the viruses during the season.
Vaccination typically takes 14 days for the body to mount full-bodied immunity to the virus but immunity against flu lasts for months, all according to Janet Hamilton, the executive director of the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists. Covid is already rife in the US and flu follows close behind it.
“We are still confused to a certain extent as to what our new normal respiratory disease seasons is going to be but there is a lot of respiratory disease activity in a lot of places across the country,” Hamilton said. “I would really recommend people to go and get the vaccine and get it done immediately.”
Projections from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say that this respiratory disease season will be as bad as last year when more than 20 people per 100,000 were being hospitalized per week at its worst, and far worse than in previous years before the current pandemic. During the 2023-24 flu season, the CDC confirmed that more than 200 children died from the flu, the highest fatalities recorded, and most were without vaccination.
It is also possible that burden of disease is lower, though the extent of that will be governed by how effective vaccination is going to be.
“The fall respiratory disease vaccines are as good as advertised,” Hamilton said. “It’s a good weapon to protect you from serious infections, to prevent admissions, and the duration of infector or absence from work is minimised. Here’s what to know about the vaccines available to protect yourself from this season.
COVID-19 vaccines
The CDC recommends that everyone ages 6 months and the older receive a Covid-19 vaccine this season to stay up to date the virus is continuously evolving, and the newer versions of the vaccine could offer the protection against the severe disease by targeting the newer variants.
There are multiple options available; mRNA vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer were the updated to target to KP.2 one of the so-called FLiRT variants that have been dominant in the US since the month of May and those variants are for people 6 months and the older.
A more traditional protein vaccine from the Novavax is also available but it targets the JN.1 a variant that is still circulating but less prominently than a few months ago.
The Novavax vaccine is approved only for those ages between 12 and up.
We don’t know how effective these vaccines will be in the practice and the Covid-19 vaccines provided 54% protection against symptomatic infection last season, CDC data shows despite new variants that cropped up.