KENT COUNTY, Mich — As fall approaches, health experts are encouraging people to schedule flu shots along with their trips to pumpkin patches.
Dr. Andrew Jameson, an infectious disease physician with Trinity Health, said the flu vaccine decision process begins months before flu season starts.
“We kind of make our decision about what strains we're targeting in the winter and spring before the flu season,” Jameson explained.
He recommends that people begin planning for vaccination now.
“We rarely get a flu spike in, like flu really starting to circulate until December and January. You want to get a vaccine, you know, three to four weeks before you really are at risk,” Jameson said.
As for the best time to get the shot, Jameson offered this advice.
“I think my recommendation is to get it when it's convenient. If you can optimally time it, my personal preference is, I love October,” he said.
Last year’s flu season was especially severe in Michigan.
“It was the first year since 2020 that we had more hospitalizations from influenza than we did from covid, like in Michigan, and we had the most pediatric deaths from influenza than we had since we started keeping track back in 2004 I think it was,” Jameson said. “That's rough. We had 14 kids that died from influenza last year in Michigan, and that is a huge number.”
Jameson said there are concerns that vaccine fatigue may reduce flu shot rates this year.
“I'm hoping that our uptake is a little bit better, because we had an eight week span of high influenza activity, and it was a more intense flu season than we've had since well before the pandemic..... And so I am not anticipating good things if we have the influenza vaccine rate what we did last year,” he said.
The CDC recommends flu vaccines for everyone 6 months and older.
Patients are encouraged to reach out to their doctor with questions.
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