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Vaccines

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Do flu shots work?

Infectious Diseases Vaccines

Yes. Annual flu vaccines prevent hundreds of thousands of cases of flu and save thousands of lives every year. The answer to the question “how well do they work” isn’t black and white because it changes from year to year, and even sometimes within a season. But even in a year when the flu vaccine Read more…

Does the bivalent COVID-19 booster vaccine help protect against getting sick from COVID-19?

Vaccines

Short answer: yes! The bivalent booster vaccine does give additional protection against symptomatic COVID-19 infections for people who had previously received the OG COVID-19 mRNA vaccines. In September 2022, the US Advisory Committee on immunization Practices (ACIP) recommended that all persons aged 12 and up who had already gotten their primary series of COVID-19 vaccines Read more…

Should I get the flu vaccine while I’m pregnant?

Infectious Diseases Reproductive Health Vaccines

A: YES! The flu vaccine protects against the higher risk of severe flu disease during pregnancy AND protects the newborn from flu during the first few months of life. TL;DR: Flu season looks especially bad this year. Influenza (“the flu”) vaccination is strongly recommended in pregnancy. Because the virus is seasonal, vaccination is recommended as Read more…

Can the COVID-19 vaccine or booster cause me to get a false positive COVID-19 test result?

Testing and Contact Tracing Vaccines

A: No. Totally impossible. TL; DR: COVID-19 tests detect presence of the actual virus, which is not contained in any COVID-19 vaccine, and the vaccines cannot cause a false positive result on these tests. COVID-19 vaccines *do not* contain any SARS-CoV-2 virus, they just teach our immune system to make antibodies against the *spike protein* Read more…