Vaccine debate continues, but CDC sides with getting flu season shots

HUNTSVILLE — Hit me with your best shot, or no?

The debate over whether or not to received vaccines is one that will never be won. But for the Center for Disease control and Prevention (CDC), there’s only one right answer. The federal government organization advises Americans to get appropriate jabs for the cold and flue season.

Currently, vaccines for COVID, Influenza and Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) are beneficial to the public.

“The respiratory virus season is here,” said Dr. Wes Stubblefield, Northern and Northwestern District Officer for the Alabama Department of Public Health. “People need to make sure that they protect themselves, especially those that have risks for severe, underlying disease like immune system problems or underlying medical conditions and especially those that are kind of at the extremes of age — the very, very young and older individuals.”

The RSV vaccination is recommended for those 60 years and older. Stubblefield said people who have recently contracted COVID are likely to have immunization for about three months, unless perhaps it wasn’t the new JN.1 virus that is targeted by the newest shot.

“What we do know is that after you’ve had COVID, you get a pretty good immune response and you have pretty good immunity for about three months,” he said. “As the as the variants change, then that immunity becomes less effective because the variant can then escape the immunity. And that goes for both the vaccine immunity and the infection immunity.

“It’s hard to say because we don’t know how much immunity escape there is for this new variant. But in general, what the CDC is showing is that the vaccines are looking pretty good against this new variant. And as long as you’re not sick from COVID anymore, you can get the vaccine. But, you do have about three months of really good immunity. People can explore that if they want to, but right now it looks like we should have we should be pretty good for a little while after either the vaccine or the infection.”