Helpful reporting in The New York Times on Tuesday informs us that although ads for this year’s updated flu shots were being advertised in pharmacies by late August, in the frantic runup to the start of school, it is wise to delay your vaccinations until the lull between mid-September and Oct. 5, which is approximately when influenza season begins again.
Make an appointment now. The Centers for Disease Control says you probably need to get it done by Halloween, at the outside.
The strategy behind the September-October vaccination schedule is, basically, experts’ best hedged bet on predicting when the flu season will peak. Interestingly, flu waned dramatically during the pandemic years of 2020-22 — when we all wore masks and hid behind closed doors — but made its dastardly return last year once we all were mixing, mingling, and making out again. Most experts expect flu season to last around six months-ish, between October and March.
According to the Centers for Disease Control, every American above the age of 6 months should get the latest 2024-25 Covid-19 vaccine, hot off the production line, as well: You can get it at the same time as the flu shot, if that convenience increases your likelihood of actually doing it. (And if you haven’t actually been recently sick with Covid.) “The Covid-19 vaccine helps protect you from severe disease, hospitalization, and death,” according to a C.D.C. press release.
Sounds good to us.
Just because you had Covid shots a year or two or three ago doesn’t mean you don’t need the new one! Don’t make that mistake. Your immunity from years-old vaccines will have faded away by now and the latest formulas “give you the best protection from the currently circulating strains,” said the C.D.C.
It’s remarkable how blasé most of us have become about Covid vaccinations. How quickly we have forgotten the knuckle-biting tension, the desperation, of frantically refreshing the screen in an attempt to make one of those Covid-shot appointments online when they were first released around Christmas 2020. These vaccinations have become so readily available that we can almost forget them. Here’s your reminder to count your blessings that vaccinations have become a quotidian nuisance.
Make the appointment, and nag your friends and loved ones, too.