CDC: COVID-19 vaccine can be administered with yearly vaccines

DAYTON — As we learn more about COVID-19 and vaccines, the CDC is updating their recommendations that says the COVID vaccine can be administered while getting your other yearly vaccines.

If you have received your COVID vaccine, you may have been asked if you have received any other vaccines in the past two weeks. If you answered no, you were able to get the shot and were instructed not to get any other vaccines for the next two weeks. And, now the question looms, why?

Dr. Thomas Huth, Vice President of Medical Affairs, at Reid Health said, “The only reason for that is an abundance of caution.”

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Huth said it was the CDC who recommended the two-week wait period for vaccines before and after the COVID-19 shot.

“There was no data, there were no interactions or problems associated with receiving two vaccines within a short period of time,” Huth said.

Which is why on May 14th, the CDC changed their recommendations.

Huth said, “The previous recommendation was just because it wasn’t really known whether there could be interactions but when they look at the data, they’ve got so far on all the vaccine administration, there have been 240 million doses of the vaccine given since December. They can find no instances where people had problems with other vaccines in that two-week window.”

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Another reason for the new recommendations is that kids are in school, who may also be receiving other vaccines like Hepatitis, flu, meningitis or HPV vaccines, should be able to get all of their vaccines the way they normally would.

“We’re getting into a season where we have a need to administer more vaccines and we don’t want to discourage people from getting their normal vaccines,” Huth said.

Right now, Dr. Huth said, the main recommendation for giving multiple vaccines at the same time is that those that cause reaction at the injection site should be placed far enough apart so that it doesn’t cause too much discomfort.

“If we’re giving a lot of vaccines, we have to be careful at putting them too close to each other. They should be at least an inch apart and those with a large immune reaction should be giving in opposite arms,” Huth said.

Cox Media Group