When Should You Get a Flu Shot? is a very common question with a very simple answer: basically whenever you can. Although flu outbreaks can happen as early as September or October, the possibility of getting infected lasts throughout the flu season. The old adage better late than never does apply to getting caught with staff infection unless you are currently infected, in which case it is too late. However, if you are not infected and showing symptoms, getting a flu shot can prevent an infection from setting in at any time, whether during the height of the flu season or not.

Although most people can benefit from taking their flu shots toward the beginning of the season and it helps to limit outbreaks, it is more important to ensure that at risk groups get their shots first. These include children older than six months and under eighteen years of age, pregnant women, and people over the age of fifty. Others with special medical conditions, people living in communal arrangements (like nursing homes), and healthcare workers should also take priority. If you do not fit within one of these groups, it is probably better to wait until later and be sure there is no ongoing shortage before otherwise healthy people take their flu shots.

Contrary to some popular urban myths, you cannot get the flu from a flu vaccine shot. The viral agents contained in the shot are quite dead and cannot infect you in any way. What usually leads people to believe this is when they receive their flu shot after having being infected, whether or not symptoms are showing at the time. The coincidence of timing may make it look like you caught the illness from the shot, but that is not the case. Similarly, it should be remembered that the formulation for the annual flu vaccine changes each year, so just because you take a flu shot it does not mean that you will not catch a different flu virus.