Should I get a Covid shot this season?
Covid Vaccine, Should I get one this year?
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) recommend that everyone six months and over get the new Covid-19 vaccine for this season. The number of doses recommended depends on your age, risk factors and number of previous vaccinations, however for most people 12 and older, one booster is recommended.
After doing my own research, here are my thoughts:
If you are 65 years old or older, or six months or older and have a medical problem such as moderate to severe asthma, cystic fibrosis, diabetes, chronic lung disease or are immunocompromised, you should get a Covid vaccine. Get the vaccine if you are healthy but have close contact with a family member who is at high risk.
If your child is 6 months to 11 years and completely healthy, I think it is acceptable to choose not to give your child the Covid-19 vaccine at this time. The Wray Clinic is not stocking vaccine for children under 12. Only the Pfizer and Moderna mRNA vaccines are available for this age group under emergency use authorization, and I think we are no longer in an emergency situation. I will say, however, that I believe in the efficacy and safety of vaccines, and if you want to follow the CDC and ACIP recommendations and reduce your child’s chance of getting seriously ill from Covid, I think it is also a good choice to get your child vaccinated.
For completely healthy people 12 years to 64 years, I recommend you get a Covid vaccine if you want to decrease your chance of getting a Covid-19 infection and decrease your chance of getting seriously sick should you contract Covid-19. For healthy children and young adults 12 and over, despite the fact that the Novavax is emergency use authorized and the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are fully FDA approved, I would try to get a Novavax vaccine, as despite lacking data for full approval, the Novavax uses traditional technology that has been proven safe in other vaccines for decades. There is no evidence to suggest mRNA vaccines have any long-term problems but the mRNA vaccines lack large long-term data, whereas the technology used by the Novavax vaccine has decades of safety data. I got a mRNA vaccine because it was convenient but told my sons in college to get the Novavax.
Because pregnant women are at higher risk of complication of Covid infection, even though the incidence and severity of Covid-19 infections is likely to be down this season, I recommend pregnant women get a Covid vaccine. Although the Novavax vaccine is likely also safe, due to lack of data on the Novavax vaccine in pregnancy, the Pfizer and Moderna mRNA vaccines are the first choice in pregnancy. In an analysis of nearly 120,000 pregnant women receiving Covid vaccine compared to unvaccinated pregnant women, the stillbirth risk was 15% lower in vaccinated women and there was no increased rate of any complication of pregnancy. Vaccinated women had better pregnancy outcomes than the unvaccinated group.
The following is some more information to help you make your decision on the Covid vaccine. Due to the fact most of the population has either received Covid vaccines or been infected with Covid-19, the rate of serious infections is decreasing. To put things in perspective, about 22,000 to 51,000 people die of influenza in the U.S. every year. According to CDC data, in 2020-2021, about 450,000 people died of Covid-19 in the U.S.. In 2023-2024 about 59,000 people died with Covid-19 in the U.S.
All three of the Covid-19 vaccines are about equally effective. Let’s say hypothetically you have a 5% chance of getting infected this season. If you get a vaccine and past vaccine efficacy rates continue with the new strain, your chance of getting Covid-19, would decrease to about 0.5%, and your chance of getting seriously sick from Covid-19 would be extremely low.
All three of the vaccines are considered safe. You are more likely to have non-serious side effects like fever, headache, injection site pain, and muscle aches with Covid vaccines than from the flu shot. The serious adverse events associated with these vaccines are either so rare or not clearly caused by the vaccine, that the only serious adverse event that I found worth discussing is myocarditis/pericarditis (inflammation of the heart muscle or sack that surrounds the heart.) The risk of myocarditis is clearly much higher if you contract Covid-19 infection. For the Pfizer and Moderna vaccine the risk appears to be greatest in males aged 16-29 after the second vaccine if given less than 30 days after the initial vaccine. Although the majority of vaccine associated cases of myocarditis were mild, it can rarely be life-threatening. In a Canadian study the highest incidence of mRNA vaccine associated myocarditis occurred in males aged 16-17 years old with a rate of about 0.002%. The Novavax vaccine has less data, but out of about 39,000 vaccinated, 5 people 0.013%, developed myocarditis or pericarditis. In this study about 2500 people were 12-18 years old and 1 person (0.04%) in this age group developed myocarditis. I just couldn’t find enough data, but the Novavax vaccine may have a slightly higher risk of myocarditis/pericarditis than the mRNA vaccines. Keep in mind that all these studies were done on vaccine targeted against a different variant than the vaccines available today.
Pfizer Covid vaccines are available at the Wray Clinic for people12 years and older. Insurance, Medicare and Medicaid cover Covid vaccines but for people without insurance, at the Wray Clinic through the Vaccine for Children program, children 12 to 18 years, can receive a Covid vaccine for $22.18. For people 19 and over without insurance, the cash price is $327. Cost for a Covid vaccine without insurance at Walgreens is $200, and Walmart is $165. Walmart has Covid vaccine for people 3 years and older, and Walgreens only gives Covid vaccine to people 12 years and older. The Yuma Clinic has Covid vaccine available for children 6 months and older with Medicaid or without insurance through the Vaccines for Children Program, but for people with insurance they only carry the vaccine for ages 12 and over. Pretty complicated and I’m not sure where you can get the Covid vaccine if you have insurance and are 6 months to 3 years old.
Hope this helps. Glad to be out of the pandemic, but still would like everyone to stay as healthy as possible.