Hi everyone, this is Kevin. Today is Friday, October 8th.
It’s officially fall, and flu season is upon us. Our Medical team began holding flu vaccine clinics in Groton this week on the heels of clinics at Quonset Point in September. Today, I am joined by Doc Andrews and Doc Hurley, EB’s Medical Directors, to talk about why we should all get a flu shot.
Thanks for being with us, Docs. We’ve all been focused on preventing the spread of COVID, and rightly so, but the seasonal flu can also cause significant illness and deaths occur each and every year. Doc Andrews, let’s talk about why it is still important to get a flu vaccine this year.
Thanks Kevin. A flu vaccine is needed every year for two reasons. First, a person’s immune protection from vaccination declines over time, so an annual flu vaccine is needed for optimal protection. Secondly, because flu viruses are constantly changing, the composition of flu vaccines is reviewed annually and vaccines are updated to protect against the viruses that research indicates will be most common during the upcoming flu season. For the best protection, everyone six months and older should get vaccinated annually. The flu vaccine has been shown in several studies to reduce severity of illness in people who get vaccinated but still get ill, which is really good. It can reduce the risk of flu-associated hospitalization, and it’s an important preventive tool for people with certain underlying chronic health conditions.
The CDC estimates that an average of 36,000 people in the US die yearly from the flu. This year getting the seasonal flu vaccine is even more important than other years, so that you don’t end up getting both the flu and COVID at the same time.
We talked a lot about that last year at this time with COVID and the flu, and I was pleased to see we had a significant uptick in the number of flu vaccines we administered last year. Some people are always concerned, and they tell me that they’re not going to get the flu vaccine because they will get sick. What are some of the common side effects reported, Doc Andrews?
The most common side effects from flu shots are soreness, redness, tenderness or swelling where the shot was given. Sometimes you can get a low-grade fever, headache and muscle aches. If these reactions occur, they usually begin soon after vaccination and last one to two days. From the feedback I have gotten this year, and also including myself, there have been very few side effects from the flu shot.
It is important to point out that flu vaccines cannot cause flu illness. Flu vaccines are made with either inactivated (killed) viruses, or synthetically by making a protein from the flu virus.
I got my flu shot yesterday, and I feel great—no impacts; not even a sore arm. I concur with your feedback and your personal experience. Getting vaccinated at this time will provide protection throughout the rest of the year, isn’t that right?
Yes. In general, healthcare providers, including myself, should begin offering vaccination as soon as the vaccines becomes available and, if possible, by October. This allows the two weeks it takes for your body to develop the antibodies that it needs to help protect you.
Doc Hurley, what kind of response are we seeing at our flu clinics so far this year? And, if an employee has not yet been vaccinated, are there still opportunities to do so?
Yes, we’ve had a good response so far. At Quonset, we’ve given 410 flu shots. In Connecticut, we’ve had a particularly satisfying past couple of weeks. From our first clinics starting in the last week in September through Thursday October 7th, we have given a total of 2,057 flu shots. Broken down, we have given 1,885 of regular strength influenza vaccine and 172 of the high dose. The high dose protects those over the age of 65, individuals with certain health conditions, and those whose physician recommends it. I’d recommend you check with your physician to see what type is recommended for you. To answer the second part of your question, yes, our flu clinics are continuing in Connecticut through the month of October.
Employees who haven’t yet received their COVID vaccine can also receive the COVID vaccine at the flu clinics, isn’t that right Doc Hurley?
Yes, we have an ample supply of COVID-19 vaccines. We have the FDA-approved Pfizer vaccine as well as the Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) Moderna vaccine. With hundreds of millions of doses given around the world, the data tells us that both are well tolerated and have a low incidence of side effects.
What has been a very pleasant response is that during the past two weeks, 118 employees of the Electric Boat community elected to protect themselves, their families and their communities by taking the COVID-19 vaccine. Of the 118 total doses, 102 represented their first shot, 6 their second and 10 their third shot. Ninety-one chose Pfizer, while 27 received the Moderna vaccine. We will be conducting an onsite vaccine clinic at QP with the Moderna vaccine on Wednesday, October 13th, at the Dispensary in Building 60. We’ll include a link in the podcast transcript that employees can use to register for this event.
Presently, we do NOT carry Johnson and Johnson (J+J) vaccine as it is in short supply in the state of Connecticut. That having been said, we are currently working hard on acquiring a small allotment of “J+J” vaccine. So for those opting for a single dose, keep your fingers crossed.
Alternatively, Big Y supermarkets do have the J+J vaccine. You can to their website and make an appointment. They are running about one week out at present. Alternatively, you can go to the CDC vaccine finder and punch in your zip code. It will give you all the information you need to get your vaccine in the community.
Thanks Doc. Just a question: is it safe to get these vaccines at the same time— flu and COVID?
Yes, certainly, you can get a COVID-19 vaccine and a 2021 influenza vaccine at the same time. As you know, to be fully protected, Pfizer requires a first dose and a second dose three weeks later. Moderna requires the initial as well as the four-week second dose. People should follow the recommended schedule for either vaccine and remember, for either COVID vaccine, you are not considered fully vaccinated until two weeks after your last dose. That includes the one-dose Johnson and Johnson COVID vaccine as well as the one-dose influenza vaccine. So if you haven’t gotten your currently recommended doses of COVID-19 vaccine, please get them as soon as you can. As for the flu shot, ideally you should get a flu vaccine by the end of October.
Thanks Doc. We’re hearing an awful lot about COVID vaccines in the news. Is there any new information you can share with our audience?
Yes, there is. Yesterday, Pfizer asked federal regulators to authorize emergency use of their coronavirus vaccine for kids ages 5 through 11. Their submission for approval was based on a study of 2,268 volunteers ages 5 to 11 who showed they mounted the same type of strong immune response to the vaccine as teens and young adults.
The Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will need to sign off on the vaccine before it becomes available to children of those ages. An independent expert panel will review the data October 26th.
And in other news, the CDC stated that as of Thursday morning, the United States has administered nearly 400 million (399,552,444) doses of COVID-19 vaccines in the country. The agency said 216,268,034 people had received at least one dose, while 186,618,184 people were fully vaccinated as of 6 a.m. Thursday morning. This is good news, but we’ve still got a lot of hard work to do to bring this pandemic under control. So I’m personally asking that all workers get vaccinated against COVID-19.
Let me second that request Doc. I agree, all that is good news, and we all need to do our part to help get our lives back to some degree of normal. Thank you both for taking the time to remind us why flu shots are so important, and how we can conveniently get both the flu shot and the COVID shot on site at Electric Boat. We’ll include a link to the upcoming clinics in the podcast transcript.
Please everyone, if you haven’t done so already, get vaccinated for both the flu and for COVID. I’d also like to ask everyone who has been vaccinated for COVID, please register your vaccination as was detailed in the communication that went out yesterday. Just to make sure everybody understands, we had a great response and unfortunately it crashed the email server that everybody was trying to get access to. We’ve since fixed it, so if you had problems trying to get through and register your vaccine, it should be working now. We’ll provide links to that message on Homeport and EB Landing.
Thanks everyone for everything you do; please stay safe and we’ll talk again soon.
Kevin
