PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — The city’s top health official is once again recommending that everyone over the age of 6 months should get vaccinated against the flu and COVID-19. And nationwide, health officials are facing an uphill battle getting Americans to protect themselves against sickness.
A month after the CDC recommended new versions of COVID-19 vaccines to the public, only 7% of U.S. adults and 2% of children have gotten a shot. New federal data also indicates nearly 40% of adults don't intend to do so. And a similar percentage of parents say they don't plan to vaccinate their children.
Health Commissioner Dr. Cheryl Bettigole says city health centers have plenty of vaccine doses — and they’re available for free.
“The uptake for this fall's COVID vaccine nationally is still pretty low,” she said. “So we have a lot of work to do to reach people with that vaccine. And then flu is always lower than it should be.”
While rates of COVID infection are currently a fraction of what they were at the height of the pandemic, the virus is still circulating, Bettigole said.
“You know, people are continuing to get hospitalized. We have about, I believe, 86 people in the hospital right now with COVID. We still see deaths from COVID at higher rates than influenza. It's still the major respiratory virus in the city that is hospitalizing people and killing people. And immunity, we know at this point, wanes over time.”
Getting vaccinated isn’t just about preventing illness and death; it’s also about keeping access to hospitals clear and keeping kids in school.
“We had this huge respiratory wave last fall that really impacted our ERs. And what did that mean? Kids who were sick — even adults who were sick, but mostly kids — last year: The ER waits for 12 hours or more to even get seen.”
She says picking up preventable sickness can be particularly detrimental for children.
“Every year there are lots of kids who miss weeks of school they can't afford to miss. They need to be in school learning.”
Bettigole says it takes about two weeks after a vaccination for the body to be able to protect itself from the virus, which is why she says flu and COVID vaccines will work best now, before people start gathering for Thanksgiving and other holidays.
“So we're trying to get people who didn't get their shots earlier in the fall to really step up and get those shots.”
And, she adds, it’s safe to get the flu and COVID vaccines at the same time.