CDC Issues ‘Urgent’ Alert Due to Low Vaccination Rates for Flu, COVID

ATLANTA — The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has issued an “urgent” alert to health care providers to notify them of the current low rate of vaccinations against the flu, COVID-19 and the respiratory syncytial virus, also known as RSV.

The alert, which encourages health care providers to step up their efforts to get more vaccines in more arms, comes as the rate of infections due to respiratory pathogens is increasing.

In the past four weeks, the CDC said, hospitalizations among all age groups increased by 200% for influenza, 51% for COVID-19 and 60% for RSV.

Currently, only South Carolina and Louisiana fall into the category of having a “very high” rate of flu activity, but every state in the U.S. is in play in terms of respiratory infections, the CDC noted in its most recent Weekly Influenza Surveillance Report.

Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, New Mexico, California and New York City are all experiencing a high rate of flu cases, while Florida, Texas, Arkansas, North Dakota, and Nevada are currently in the moderate to high range in terms of inflections.

Among the states at the lowest end of the scale in terms of flu infections are Iowa, Illinois, Wisconsin and Washington state.

Low incidence rates of respiratory illnesses have also been reported in New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine, Idaho, Oregon, Utah, Kansas, Missouri and Oklahoma.

“Currently, the highest respiratory disease activity in the United States is occurring across the southern half of the country, with increasing activity in northern states,” the CDC said in its alert.

Health care providers should administer influenza, COVID-19, and RSV immunizations now to patients, if recommended, the agency said.

It goes on to say health care providers should recommend antiviral medications for influenza and COVID-19 for all eligible patients, especially patients at high risk of progression to severe disease such as older adults and people with certain underlying medical conditions.

Health care providers should also counsel patients about testing and other preventive measures, including covering coughs/sneezes, staying at home when sick, improving ventilation at home or work and washing hands to protect themselves and others against respiratory diseases, it said.

The same preventive methods that protect against COVID-19 also protect against the flu virus: vaccination, masks, frequent handwashing and staying home or away from others while sick.

For those who have not received recommended vaccines for respiratory illnesses, the CDC noted that getting multiple vaccines at the same time is safe and effective.

In addition to surveilling current conditions across the country, the agency said it recently reviewed a pair of national surveys to determine why more people aren’t getting vaccinated.

The reasons identified by the Ipsos KnowledgePanel and NORC AmeriSpeak Omnibus surveys included a lack of provider recommendation, concerns or issues about unknown or serious side effects, the occurrence of mild side effects and lack of time or forgetting to get vaccinated.

The CDC said health care providers should leverage all available tools to increase immunizations against influenza, COVID-19 and RSV, noting that it has developed communication tools including a conversation guide and immunization call-back message template to aid provider efforts in increasing immunizations in their patient populations.

Additional tools can be found at CDC’s Healthcare Provider Toolkit: Preparing Your Patients for the Fall and Winter Virus Season, the agency said.

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