The years after COVID have turned into a post-flu vaccine era
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Demand for flu shots is declining, particularly among some of the most medically vulnerable groups, raising concerns that the vaccines may be falling out of favor in a post-pandemic world.
Why it matters: While uptake for flu shots has never been stellar, experts say vaccine fatigue, shifting attitudes and lowered public trust may be eroding demand.
"When we saw this for the first year .... we were like, 'OK, it's just coming out of the pandemic. There's all these COVID vaccines. This feels like a blip,' " said Stefan Merlo, vice president of commercial operations at vaccine maker CSL Seqirus.
- "We don't believe that anymore."
The big picture: The CDC recommends everyone 6 months and older should get a flu vaccine each year and last month it recommend the 2024-2025 flu vaccines in addition to the updated COVID-19 vaccines. Half of U.S. adults did during the 2020-2021 respiratory virus season, but the rate has tailed off since then and was down to about 47% in 2023-2024.
- But that doesn't capture the full story, experts say, noting that the drop-off is largely being driven by the most vulnerable populations, officials say.
- About 70% of seniors got a vaccine in the 2022-2023 respiratory virus season, down from 75% in the 2020-2021 season, according to CDC data. That's unusual because the group typically has very stable vaccination rates, Merlo said.
- Vaccinations among kids and adolescents dipped from 56% in the 2020-2021 respiratory virus season to 47% in the 2023-2024 respiratory virus season while uptake in pregnant people has slipped from 53% to 36%.
Zoom in: The same patterns have been seen at Nemours Children's Health where many parents who traditionally got their kids vaccinated are opting out, said Jonathan Miller, chief of pediatric primary care at Nemours in Delaware.
- "It's a really disappointing trend," Miller said. "I suspect that the COVID pandemic and the sort of political milieu during this time has had a lot of impact on vaccine confidence and an increase in vaccine hesitancy."
- There are likely multiple other factors at play, including the fact families may have just gotten out of the habit of getting flu shots or other vaccinations, Niki Carelli, executive director of the Coalition to Stop Flu, told Axios.
- There may be confusion or vaccine fatigue for some individuals after receiving so many COVID-19 shots and potentially getting RSV vaccines for the first time.
The bottom line: The lowered vaccine rates may already be resulting in worse outcomes.
- Already, the CDC's preliminary estimates also show an overall rise in flu-related hospitalizations and deaths during the 2023 and 2024 flu season compared with prior seasons.
- The flu accounted for nearly half of all hospitalizations from infectious diseases, including COVID-19 and RSV in the U.S. last season, per the CDC.
- A spokesman for the CDC said the agency is concerned about drops in vaccinations, saying "respiratory diseases can be very serious, especially among people at higher risk of developing serious complications."
