Determining the best order to get annual vaccines for flu, COVID, and RSV

ST. LOUIS (KMOX) - The new updated COVID vaccines are now available at CVS and other local pharmacies.

With an abundance of vaccines now out there -- including COVID, the flu and RSV -- what should be our order of preference?

KMOX Health Editor Fred Bodimer ask that question to SLU Care General Internist Dr. Fred Buckhold at SSM Health Saint Louis University Hospital.

He says he definitely would put the updated COVID vaccine at the top of his list right now.

"I think the new vaccines have been altered to be effective against the variants that are out now," said Dr. Buckhold on KMOX. "If I see a patient now and they say 'I'm only going to take one', I'm probably going to insist on the COVID vaccine."

Dr. Buckhold says for those with underlying respiratory disease, particularly COPD -- and for people over 75, he says an RSV vaccine makes a lot of sense.

By winter, Dr. Buckhold says he hopes most people would have had their updated COVID shot -- and he would give the flu shot the bigger preference because the flu affects the general population a bit more severely.