Doctors are recommending that people get both a flu and COVID-19 vaccine this season.

They also say it's safe to get both the COVID vaccine and flu shot at the same time, on the same day and even in the same arm. The only risk is having a sore arm afterwards.

For most healthy adults the flu is a benign illness, but for elderly patients and kids it's more serious.

For that reason, doctors are really focused on getting those age groups their vaccines.

"It is beneficial for everyone to get it," said Adam Porath, the Vice President of Pharmacy at Renown Health. "It's recommended with the new COVID vaccine, with everyone, that if it has been more than two months since your last COVID vaccine and you're older than 6 months old that you would get an updated COVID vaccine."

At Renown or any health care provider, both COVID vaccines and influenza vaccines are available free of charge through most commercial insurances and Medicaid.

For those without insurance, Renown offers a low-cost vaccine, and a $20 flu shot.

Porath said that in Northern Nevada the flu season starts in late winter.

"The recommendation as far as timing of your flu shot is to get that somewhere in October would be an optimal time frame for adults, but for kids, you'll want them to get it as soon as possible," Porath said.

Porath also said the updated COVID vaccine targets the most prevalent strain of the virus that's out now.

"So when they did the clinical trials, everything we're seeing with pre-clinical studies show that this new vaccine will still be effective against the most current strain that's going around today," he said.

According to Porath, a lot of times people are concerned about how well the flu vaccine will do against the strains of flu we're seeing each year.

"The data that we're seeing out of Australia shows the vaccine matches very well this year to the circulating strains of the flu upwards of 80% to 98% matching this year for the strains so that's a good thing," he said.

To schedule a vaccination appointment, you can do so here: https://www.renown.org/Health-Services/Vaccinations