Getting people vaccinated is probably “more important” than booster vaccination

While booster vaccinations have been approved for some Americans, this isn’t the easiest recommendation. To clarify, Dr. Angela Rasmussen with the Gee and Ursula Show from KIRO Radio.

Dr. Rasmussen studies emerging viruses, including SARS-CoV-2, and is an associate professor at the University of Saskatchewan Organization for vaccines and infectious diseases, a research institute focused on developing vaccines against pandemic viruses.

To start off, Rasmussen says it’s perfectly fine to get your flu shot at the same time as your COVID-19 vaccine if you haven’t already been vaccinated.

“Of course, if you have already been vaccinated, there is nothing to worry about,” she said. “But you should still get your flu shot. But if you are not vaccinated against COVID-19, it is actually a great opportunity to go to the pharmacy and take care of things at the same time. “

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As for booster vaccination, whether or not you are a candidate depends on what type of vaccine you received.

“This is really confusing for a lot of people,” said Dr. Rasmussen too. “The booster recommendation currently only applies to people who originally received the Pfizer vaccine.”

“If they haven’t received the Pfizer vaccine the first time, they may not be able to get the booster vaccine yet as the recommendations currently only apply to people who originally received the Pfizer vaccine,” added Rasmussen. “This is really unfortunate because it is the result of basically only having data from the Pfizer vaccine available for the FDA and CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices to evaluate.”

Despite the recommendation of the booster, Rasmussen emphasized that all COVID vaccines currently used in the USA still offer very good protection against serious illnesses.

Going forward, Rasmussen says she is “cautiously optimistic” about how things are in the United States regarding COVID-19 cases.

“It seems that cases are now falling across the country. That won’t be the case in every single region, but they are, ”she said. “And like you said, vaccinations are increasing, but at the same time there are still not enough people being vaccinated.”

National vaccination rates are great, she noted, but there are some communities where the majority of eligible people are still not vaccinated.

“This is potentially very dangerous in autumn and winter, especially since there are fewer restrictions. People will be more inside. The holidays are just around the corner, they will get together with their families, ”said Rasmussen. “I think wherever we are now we have the opportunity, a short window of time, to really care about getting unvaccinated people vaccinated, and I would argue that this is actually more important than making sure that people who have already been vaccinated have one Boosters get shots. “

“I think it is really important that the vaccines for children under 12 get approved as soon as possible as they are a significant unvaccinated population, and we just need to do more to vaccinate unvaccinated people” , added her.

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Dr. Rasmussen also pointed out that not every unvaccinated person is voluntarily unvaccinated. She says there are still major problems with access to vaccines.

“It’s even more pronounced globally,” she said. “There are some countries where a very small portion of the population has been vaccinated, countries that will not have access to adequate vaccines until 2022 or even later. So we’re in a good place with the US for Washington State, but we still have a lot to do globally. “

Listen to the Gee and Ursula show on weekdays from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. on KIRO Radio, 97.3 FM. Subscribe to the podcast here.