TAMPA, Fla. — This is the first fall and winter season that vaccines are available for all three major respiratory viruses.
“We’re going into a season by all indications, we’re looking at multiple infectious diseases,” said Dr. Raj P. Kotak, Chief Medical Officer for AdventHealth Carrollwood.
“This respiratory season, it is likely at some point that we’ll be seeing that ‘triple-demic’ that we saw last time,” said Dr. Laura Arline, Chief Quality Officer for BayCare.
That’s the flu, RSV, and COVID-19.
“Getting vaccines to all three really is the best recommendation to prevent severe or significant illness from it,” said Kotak.
The updated COVID-19 booster has been available for a few weeks now.
Federal health advisers recently approved an RSV vaccine for anyone 60 and older.
Just last week, the CDC recommended RSV vaccinations for anyone who’s pregnant to help protect babies because they can have a severe reaction to the virus.
“The thing that RSV is really known for is severe disease in kids less than a year of age. This is why people have been trying to vaccinate this population for a long time. We just not have been able to do that,” said Dr. Michael Teng, Virologist and USF Health Associate Professor.
According to the CDC, the shots should be given late in pregnancy during RSV season.
“So instead of vaccinating really, really young kids, the idea was to vaccinate their moms and have the mom’s antibodies transfer through the placenta into the baby, and then when they’re born, they’ll have mom’s antibodies to protect them from infection,” said Teng.
“This worked really well in the clinical trials,” he added.
This comes as doctors are pushing people to get vaccinated for the flu, too, before the flu virus really begins to circulate.
“The good news is that the flu vaccine that has been created this year is a pretty good match to the flu strains that are circulating. So what that means is that we did a good job of anticipating whether the vaccine will actually work,” said Dr. Jill Roberts, Associate Professor for the USF College of Public Health.
The CDC reports there were up to 58,000 deaths from last year’s flu season.
“And that included kids. So remember, flu can be pretty bad in kids where as in COVID, it isn’t as bad in kids,” said Arline.
“Within any particular year on the low end, we usually see about 25,000 people lose their lives from influenza. Preventable. Completely preventable. So there’s absolutely no reason to not go ahead and take the flu shot,” said Roberts.
The flu vaccine has been authorized for anyone six months and older.
“Receiving the vaccine is the best way to prevent really severe or significant flu disease, symptoms, or hospitalizations and even complications that can occur within the hospital itself," said Kotak.
Some experts worry recent vaccine hesitancy means there will be a low vaccination rate this season.
“It’s almost like some of the concerns that folks had with the COVID vaccine has seeped into other vaccines that we have used for decades and decades to help prevent illness and complications and deaths from very well-known diseases like the flu,” said Arline.
“I think safety is always an important point to make. The vaccine safety has been proven over time to be safe and effective against influenza,” said Kotak.
Most pharmacies and doctor’s offices should have the flu vaccine now.
Doctors recommend people get that shot now, before the end of October.
“It does take a couple of weeks to really take it’s maximal effect. So we want to be ahead of it," said Kotak.
“Flu is miserable. It’s a terrible disease. You feel just absolutely awful, you can spread it to other individuals. If you have a tool out there that’s going to prevent that from happening, you should use it,” said Roberts.
