Respiratory virus season is officially here. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, also known as the CDC, has recently reported that this respiratory disease season is expected to have a similar or lower number of peak hospitalizations than the previous, expecting that vaccination will be a key factor in preventing hospitalizations.
As flu season begins, health employees are diving into their efforts to promote vaccines to combat flu and COVID-19.
Johnson County Community Health Manager Samuel Jarvis explained the proactive effort that is taken by the entire community during the illness-ridden months of fall.
“The state shares out there respiratory surveillance weekly, which is great, folks can kind of look at that and get a sense of what’s going on in terms of illness activity,” he said. “As always during the traditional flu season time frame ourselves, along with so many of our partners at the hospital and pharmacies, are now really promoting flu vaccines.”
Jarvis said the “prime time” for residents to receive flu and COVID-19 vaccinations to prevent illness is from the beginning of September to anywhere throughout October.
“There’s some folks who wait a little bit longer, which is great, too. But for the most part, we’re really trying to do a push to get folks in, to get their protection as soon as possible as we enter a respiratory virus season, which most folks know can take a turn.”
For the 2023-24 season, Johnson County immunization rates were 42.5 percent for flu vaccinations and 29.2 percent for COVID-19, both the highest in the state.
“Obviously, 100 percent of everyone would be great. We know that that’s not always possible for the most part. We’re really happy that we lead the state for county vaccinations,” he said. “It probably makes a lot of sense to folks because we’re a health care community.”
Jarvis said there does not need to be a specific order that a person receives a flu or COVID-19 shot.
“It’s really up to them. If it’s more convenient to get both shots at the same time, that’s wonderful. If folks want to stagger those for whatever reason, maybe from their immune response that they’ve had from one to the other, that’s fine, too, as long as they get them,” Jarvis said.
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Jarvis discussed reaching across demographics to communicate with residents about vaccination updates.
“Across the board, we do experience barriers in terms of communication and making sure we’re correcting misinformation,” he said. “There are so many ways now that we can communicate: in the press, mass marketing, social media, even in-person events where we’re doing outreach.”
Student Health Medical Director Rebecca Chackalackal shared the department’s efforts to get students vaccinated.
“We try to catch students when they come into the clinic for other things and always offer flu shots,” she said. “They can get them in our nurse clinic at the IMU or at Student Health.”
As of October, University of Iowa Student Health is offering the trivalent flu shot for $80 and the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine, with flu shots available by appointment or walk-in. Walk-in flu shots will be available on Mondays and Tuesdays from 5 p.m. to 6 p.m. at Westlawn in October.
Chackalackal said some numbers of vaccinations may be down due to vaccination fatigue.
“There does seem to be some vaccine fatigue post COVID. Our numbers support this and are down from prior to the COVID pandemic, however, students often get vaccinated at home or at any of our local pharmacies,” Chackalackal said.
UI’s Health Care Communications Specialist Jennifer Brown said UI Health Care promotes vaccination among its over 20,000 employees.
“We have a dedicated annual campaign to provide free flu shots to UI Health Care employees and volunteers,” she said. “We provide convenient online scheduling for flu and COVID shots for the public. Health Care highly recommends that everyone who can get vaccinated against flu and COVID to protect themselves and their loved ones.”