Can I Get a Flu Shot and a COVID Booster in the Same Hand?
When COVID vaccines first came out, the CDC wanted to be careful. It was a new vaccine, after all, so they recommended waiting two weeks before or after any other vaccine, including the flu shot. This guide has changed. You can now get your flu and COVID shots in the same visit, but possibly not in the same hand.
The CDC recommends using separate arms if you are getting a COVID shot and a high-dose or adjuvanted flu shot. This is because both types of vaccines are considered more “reactogenic” than other common vaccines. Either way, you may have arm pain, redness, or swelling around the injection site. You can also get a swollen lymph node in the same armpit. If your reaction is severe enough to seek medical attention or report vaccine side effects to the reporting system, it would be very helpful to know which vaccine caused the problem.
However, you are not prohibited from doing both shots in the same hand. And in any case, most flu shots are not high-dose or adjuvant. (These shots are only recommended for people over 65. ) In most cases, you can get any two shots in one visit, but check with your health care provider twice as there are a few vaccines with more specific recommendations. For the monkeypox vaccine, for example, it is sometimes recommended to vaccinate after a few weeks, although if you know you have been exposed to monkeypox, you should not delay vaccination.
In most cases, if you get two shots, the providers will assume that you would like to get them in separate groups. Every time my children receive two or more vaccines, the nurses usually put the children in two teams, giving shots to both arms (or both legs, for infants) at the same time. Every time I, as an adult, go to the pharmacy for more than one injection, they give one in each arm. (Here’s how I got my travel-related typhoid and hepatitis A shot a few years ago.)
Ultimately, the choice of weapons and the choice of schedule are up to you. Your immune system is likely to respond equally well to injections, whether they’re one-handed or two-handed, reports Katherine Wu for The Atlantic . It’s really a matter of which do you prefer: two slightly sore hands or one potentially very sore hand. You can also avoid the question entirely by scheduling your flu and COVID shots on separate days, which is handy enough if you get them at your local pharmacy.