SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Sunday marks 14 days until Christmas, and 14 days is also how long it takes for a COVID-19 booster to reach full efficacy in a person’s body.
That’s why health experts are urging people to get boosted again now, before holiday gatherings.
This is as the nation deals with a so-called “tripledemic” of COVID-19, the flu and RSV, a respiratory virus.
At Shifa Community Clinic in Sacramento, next to the Muslim Mosque Association near 5th and V streets, Dr. Arif Seyal administered COVID-19 boosters Sunday morning.
“Get vaccinated as soon as possible because of Christmas and New Year gatherings coming,” he told ABC10. “You will protect not only yourself. You will protect your loved ones.”
That’s exactly what Dyanne Marte was doing at the Shifa Community Clinic Sunday, getting her third booster as she plans on flying east to visit family for Christmas and New Year’s Eve.
“I’m really not thinking about myself. It’s more others,” she said. “My mom is 85, so I really don’t want to put her at risk of getting anything from me. I would feel super, super bad – pretty much devastated.”
Plus, she is still dealing with long COVID, after getting her first case of COVID back in September.
“I still have coughing. I have issues – shortness of breath, fatigue. Sometimes it’s hard for me to put sentences together,” she said. “If I concentrate for a long time, I just get really tired.”
“The consequences of getting COVID are very big,” said Dr. Seyal. “Initially, yes, you may have mild cold or flu-like symptoms, but the long COVID is there. You can feel tired, fatigued and can have mental fog going on for several weeks, months.”
He recommends everybody get a bivalent COVID-19 booster, which covers more of the variants than the original shot. He also urges people to get the flu vaccine, especially since there is no vaccine for the other big respiratory virus circulating right now, RSV.
In a virtual COVID town hall on Friday, White House COVID-19 Response Coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha said the virus has become less disruptive because of our actions.
“Will COVID be around forever? Well, COVID’s going to be around for a long time. Will COVID continue to be disruptive. Need not be,” said Dr. Jha. “We can get on with our lives, we can do the things that matter to us if we do certain things, and that’s keep up on the vaccination, get treated if you have an infection.”
And not sure if your sniffles may be COVID or the flu? The state is now offering free influenza testing at all of its COVID-19 testing sites. Flu test results come back in about half an hour, the California Department of Public Health says.
You can find state testing sites at the California Department of Health’s My Turn website.
There's also some good news for families with kids. The CDC, FDA and state health officials have approved the use of the bivalent COVID-19 vaccines for kids as young as six months old. Up until now, those have only been only available to kids 5 and older. State officials say vaccine clinics will be able to administer those to younger kids as early as this week— so check with your provider.
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