MOBILE, Ala. — The Mobile County Health Department is urging every resident 6 months and older to get a seasonal flu vaccination, making its annual push as influenza season opens along the Gulf Coast.
The department’s message is that yearly flu vaccination remains the single most effective tool available for protecting individuals, households and the wider community from serious illness — and that the disease is routinely underrated by people who think of it as a rough week in bed.
“Flu is often underestimated, but it can lead to severe complications — even in otherwise healthy individuals,” said Dr. Kevin Michaels, Health Officer for Mobile County. “Vaccination is a simple, safe step that protects not only you, but also those around you who may be more vulnerable.”
How Flu Season Runs on the Gulf Coast
Influenza viruses circulate year-round in the United States, but activity follows a strong seasonal pattern. Cases typically begin climbing in the fall, and most seasons peak somewhere between December and February. Over the four decades from 1982 through 2024, February was the most common peak month, followed by December, January and March.
That has practical implications for a September vaccination push. Protective antibodies take roughly two weeks to develop after a shot, which means someone vaccinated in late September or October is covered well before activity builds toward the holidays. Waiting until neighbors start getting sick leaves a two-week gap at exactly the wrong moment.
The Gulf Coast’s mild winters do not exempt it from flu season. Warm coastal weather may keep people outdoors longer in the fall, but the same indoor gatherings that drive transmission elsewhere — school classrooms, holiday travel, family celebrations, church services, workplaces with the heat on and the windows shut — happen here on the same calendar. Alabama has in many seasons recorded some of the highest influenza-like illness activity in the country.
Flu season also does not end neatly. Activity often continues into April or May, which is why health officials describe vaccination as worthwhile even for people who have not gotten around to it by December.
Why the Vaccine Is Rebuilt Every Single Year
One of the most common questions health departments field is why a flu shot is an annual requirement when other vaccines last for years or decades. The answer lies in the virus.
Influenza viruses mutate continuously. Small changes accumulate in the surface proteins the immune system uses to recognize them — a process virologists call antigenic drift — and over the course of a year or two those changes can be substantial enough that antibodies built against last season’s strains no longer fit well against this season’s. Immunity from a prior vaccination also wanes over time.
So the vaccine is reformulated annually. The World Health Organization convenes twice a year to review global surveillance data and recommend which strains should go into the coming season’s vaccines. In the United States, the Food and Drug Administration’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee takes up the question each spring for the Northern Hemisphere season, and the FDA issues the final strain selection. Manufacturers then have roughly six months to produce hundreds of millions of doses.
For 2026–2027, all three virus components of U.S. seasonal flu vaccines were updated from the previous year — the H1N1 component, the H3N2 component and the influenza B component — including changes made to better match an influenza A(H3N2) subclade that circulated during the 2025–2026 season. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said it anticipates an adequate and diverse supply of approved influenza vaccines this season.
The annual rebuild is the reason a flu shot from last October does not carry over. It is a different vaccine.
Who Faces the Greatest Risk
Anyone can be hospitalized by influenza, but some groups carry substantially higher risk of severe illness and complications such as pneumonia:
- Adults 65 and older, whose immune response weakens with age.
- Children younger than 5, and especially those younger than 2.
- People who are pregnant, and those up to two weeks after delivery.
- People with chronic medical conditions, including asthma and other chronic lung disease, heart disease, diabetes, kidney and liver disorders, and neurologic conditions.
- People with weakened immune systems, whether from disease or from treatment.
- Residents of nursing homes and other long-term care facilities.
Mobile County’s demographics put a meaningful share of the population in one of those categories, and the region’s substantial retiree presence means the 65-and-older group is not small. Vaccination among people who are not personally at high risk matters for the same reason: every infection that does not happen is one that cannot be passed to a grandparent, an infant or a neighbor on chemotherapy.
The Vaccine Cannot Give You the Flu
Health officials continue to confront a persistent misconception that the shot itself causes illness. It does not.
Injected flu vaccines contain either inactivated virus — virus that has been killed and cannot replicate — or a single manufactured protein produced without any live virus at all. Neither can cause an influenza infection. Extensive large-scale studies have found that receiving the flu vaccine does not increase the risk of getting the flu. What it does instead is prime the immune system so that it responds far more quickly and effectively if a real exposure occurs.
The confusion has understandable sources. A sore arm, mild fatigue or a low-grade fever in the day or two after vaccination is the immune system responding as designed, not an infection. Flu season also coincides with a long list of other respiratory viruses that a flu vaccine was never meant to prevent, so a cold caught the week after a shot feels like evidence even though it is coincidence. And because immunity takes about two weeks to build, someone exposed shortly before or just after vaccination can still get sick.
Michaels said the stakes justify cutting through that noise.
“Flu is not just a bad cold,” he said. “It can have lasting and sometimes life-threatening consequences. Vaccination helps reduce the spread of disease in our community and protects our healthcare system from unnecessary strain.”
The Heart Connection
Research increasingly points to a link between influenza infection and cardiovascular events. Even mild cases can raise the risk of serious complications including heart attack and stroke, particularly among older adults. The inflammatory response the body mounts against a respiratory infection places measurable strain on the cardiovascular system.
That evidence is why organizations outside the traditional infectious-disease world have joined the recommendation. The National Foundation for Infectious Diseases and the American Heart Association both continue to recommend annual flu vaccination as an important preventive measure — the Heart Association’s involvement reflecting a view of the flu shot as cardiac prevention as much as respiratory protection.
A Broader Conversation About Vaccines
Public health officials note that recent outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases have renewed public conversations about vaccine effectiveness and necessity. The health department’s position is that the underlying evidence has not changed: decades of scientific study consistently show that flu vaccines are safe, that they reduce the risk of infection, and that they significantly lower the chances of severe illness, hospitalization and death.
Flu vaccines are not perfect, and health officials do not claim otherwise. Effectiveness varies from season to season depending on how closely the selected strains match what ends up circulating. But even in seasons with an imperfect match, vaccination consistently reduces the severity of illness in people who do get infected — the difference between recovering at home and being admitted to a hospital.
Where to Get Vaccinated in Mobile County
The health department encourages residents to get vaccinated early in the season and to use whichever option is most convenient. Flu vaccine is broadly available in Mobile County through:
- Primary care physicians and pediatricians, who can administer the vaccine at a routine visit.
- Retail and grocery store pharmacies, most of which offer walk-in flu shots during season.
- Mobile County Health Department clinics and community health centers.
- Employer and school-based vaccination events, where offered.
- Urgent care clinics.
Most health insurance plans, including Medicare Part B and Medicaid, cover seasonal flu vaccination at no cost to the patient. Residents without insurance should ask the health department or a community health center about options, since safety-net providers frequently have programs for uninsured adults and for children.
Residents looking for more information on flu prevention can consult the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases and the American Heart Association, both of which publish public guidance on seasonal influenza. To find a dose nearby, the health department suggests contacting a local pharmacy or health care provider directly.