As the weather becomes cooler and kids go back to school, parents often have worries about how to keep their kids healthy. This year, the advice on being vaccinated against both COVID-19 and the flu has grown more complicated. Everyone agrees that getting the flu shot every year is important, but the advice for the COVID-19 vaccination is more mixed, which makes it hard for families to know what to do.
There is a clear agreement on flu shot recommendations.
Most major health groups agree on the flu vaccine. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) both say that everyone 6 months and older should have a flu shot every year, with very few exceptions for certain medical reasons.
The CDC says that keeping kids safe from the flu is very important since infections can put them in the hospital and even kill them. The CDC says that approximately 200 kids in the U.S. died from the flu during the 2023-24 flu season. Most of them were eligible for but had not yet received their full immunization.
Flu season usually starts in December and reaches its height in February. Doctors say that the optimum time to get vaccinated is before the season starts, because it takes about two weeks for the body to make antibodies that protect it after the shot.
Different Advice on COVID-19 Vaccines
Different major health organizations have different ideas about how to give the COVID-19 vaccine to kids. The CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), which gives advice on vaccines, voted to change its advice earlier this month. The ACIP’s suggestions, which need to be approved by the CDC director before they can be made public, say that parents of healthy kids aged 6 months to 17 “may receive” the COVID-19 vaccine after talking to a doctor. The CDC doesn’t give a general recommendation for this age range, but it does “strongly recommend” the vaccine only for children who are moderately or seriously immunocompromised.
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) has a different point of view on this. The AAP “strongly recommends” COVID-19 shots for all children 6 months to 2 years old. This is a big change from what the U.S. government has said for the first time in 30 years. The AAP says that older kids should get vaccinated, but parents should make the final choice.
Because of this discrepancy in advice, parents may get different recommendations from different sources. Other important medical groups have also made their own suggestions, which makes things much more complicated.
The CDC and AAP have both released new guidelines to assist parents make smart choices based on the latest scientific research and their children’s individual health needs. Parents should talk to a doctor to find out what the best way to protect their family this fall is.