ATLANTA — As we get closer to holiday travel and gatherings with family, many people need to update their flu and COVID vaccines.
Question
Is it too late now to get vaccinated for the flu and COVID before holiday gatherings?
Our sources
Answer
Yes, there's still time to get your vaccines before the holidays.
What we found
There’s protection from COVID-19 and then there’s the BEST protection from COVID-19
According to the Centers for Disease Control, you’re still considered fully vaccinated even if you haven’t received an updated COVID booster. But the best protection, according to the CDC, comes when you get each available shot when you’re eligible.
Depending on the type of shot you get, it could take a week before you have some protection from COVID and longer than that before you’re fully protected.
“Usually for everybody it takes two weeks to have that immune response where your body understands how to protect against these variants and against COVID-19,” Dr. Shapiro said.
The updated COVID booster protects against the original version as well as the Omicron variant and its subvariants.
Dr. Hannings added that it takes the same two weeks to get to full immunity with the flu vaccine.
“There’s still time to get it before the holidays and before traveling,” she explained. “There’s just a good chance right now that you will encounter one or more of these viruses. So, I think it’s a good idea to do everything we can to protect yourself.”
So, we can Verify, there is still time to get up-to-date on COVID and flu shots and have at least partial protection with full protection coming after about two weeks.
But medical experts say, the clock is ticking, so don’t delay.