Updated COVID vaccine now available across SoCal. Here's what you need to know

LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- The updated COVID-19 vaccine is now available at pharmacies across Southern California, and there's an even bigger push to get people vaccinated ahead of the busy holiday season.

The vaccine has a new formula to more closely target circulating variants and provide better protection.

"This new updated formulation of the COVID vaccine is actually targeting the KP.2 strain, so it's very important to get it," said Alexie He, a district leader at CVS Health. "The goal is to really make sure we're preventing serious outcomes, so hospitalizations and death. Also, we have cold and flu season coming up as well as the holiday season, so it's very important to get this vaccine now."

Who needs to get the vaccine?

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends that everyone ages 6 months and older get the shot, which includes people who have gotten a COVID vaccine before and people who have had COVID.

Last week, CDC Director Mandy Cohen urged Americans to get the COVID and flu shots together.

"Head to head, flu and COVID, in terms of what is hospitalizing more folks and what is killing more folks, COVID continues to be a more dangerous virus," she said.

Dangerous as in more contagious and deadly.

"Last year, about 20,000 people I believe, according to CDC statistics, in the U.S., died of flu," said Dr. Otto Yang, the associate chief of infectious diseases at the Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. "About 75,000 people died of COVID."

Most Americans haven't received a COVID shot in the last one to two years.

"It's not vaccines that prevent disease, it's vaccinations. It's getting vaccines in arms," said Dr. Peter Marks, the director of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER) at the Food and Drug Administration.

Along with COVID and flu, health officials are urging pregnant women, high-risk 60-to-74 year olds and everyone 75 and older to get an RSV vaccine.

"These recommendations are for folks who did not already get an RSV vaccine last year," said Cohen. "Use the tools we have, vaccines, testing and treatment."

Long COVID remains a key focus for health officials, and another important reason to get the new shot.

"Those who are vaccinated, whether it's one vaccine, two vaccines or three vaccines, have a lower risk of long COVID," Marks said.

The FDA says you can get the updated vaccine at least two months after your last shot.

If you recently tested COVID positive, the CDC says wait three months after having COVID to get the updated version.