CDC Urges Updated COVID, Flu Vaccination in September or October

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Agency predicts the respiratory virus season will be similar to last year

by
Katherine Kahn, Staff Writer, MedPage Today

August 23, 2024

Following Thursday’s FDA authorization of the updated 2024-2025 COVID-19 mRNA vaccines, CDC Director Mandy Cohen, MD, MPH, recommended that every individual 6 months and older should get the updated vaccine.

“We continue to see a lot of COVID-19 activity across the country right now,” Cohen told reporters in a joint press conference with the FDA and HHS. However, she noted that circulating disease is not translating into increases in emergency department (ED) visits, hospitalizations, and deaths. “This is a similar trend that we saw last summer, as well,” she said.

The 2024-2025 updated vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech (Comirnaty) and Moderna (Spikevax) target the KP.2 strain of SARS-CoV-2, which is currently dominant in the U.S.

Although most hospitalizations and deaths from COVID are among adults ages 60 and older, children under the age of 5 years made up the majority of COVID-related ED visits during this summer’s surge, Cohen pointed out.

She recommended that eligible children and adults should get vaccinated in September or October, if possible, and that co-administration of the COVID vaccine and influenza vaccine should be encouraged. Both updated vaccines will soon be available at pharmacies and in doctors’ offices, she said, but did not provide a specific date.

The CDC’s Center for Forecasting and Outbreak Analytics predicts that this respiratory season will have a similar or lower number of combined peak hospitalizations across COVID, influenza, and RSV compared with last year’s respiratory season, she reported.

“Last fall and winter, more than 10% of the U.S. population had the flu, and at the peak of the respiratory illness season, more than 2,500 people a week were dying from COVID-19,” Jeff Nesbit, Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs at HHS, reminded reporters.

For this upcoming season, it should be easier for clinicians to pre-order vaccines, Cohen noted. Also, the CDC is working with an electronic health record scheduling platform and clinical decision support partners, so that clinicians can more easily streamline vaccinations into their workflows.

The CDC also hosted a series of educational webinars for clinicians, including a recent webinar with the American Medical Association, to help them prepare for the fall and winter respiratory season.

Cohen also touted the CDC’s interactive respiratory illnesses data channel that now provides a more user-friendly community snapshot on COVID, influenza, and RSV; a summary of recent changes in ED visits for the illnesses; and wastewater monitoring data for COVID, influenza A, and mpox.

Of concern, however, is that the CDC’s Bridge Access Program, which provided free COVID vaccines to adults without health insurance or those with insurance that does not cover all vaccine costs, is slated to be discontinued at the end of this month. In efforts to ensure access to vaccines, “CDC has identified an additional $62 million for state and local immunization programs to buy COVID vaccines this respiratory season,” Cohen said, and to provide additional funding for community-based organizations.

Dawn O’Connell, Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response at HHS, also announced to reporters that the agency’s free at-home COVID test delivery through the U.S. Postal Service will reopen in late September, marking the seventh time in 3 years that free tests have been distributed to households. Since 2021, the program has distributed a total of 1.8 billion tests — about 900 million tests to households and an additional 900 million to community-based access points, such as long-term care facilities, food banks, and libraries.