In a few months, the U.S. will be battling both the seasonal flu and COVID-19 epidemic at once.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=1320363
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=1320363
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First flu vaccines were not very effective. I learned that the hard way.
Always got my shots, but they did not give me much protection. I got really, really sick with the flu – twice, after having been vaccinated.
Won’t stop me from getting a covid vaccine.
A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do, pilgrim.
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Well, we can be sure that whatever the most disastrous path through the flu/covid season, the U.S. will be on it. The flu vaccine is not a panacea, but it does reduce length/severity.
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Weird. Most people I know (myself included) plan to get the Flu Vaccine this year. I was never a big Flu Vaccine person because I very rarely got sick but, I’m not taking the chance this year
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Problem is going to be the supply channels and distribution. Where historically lots of people got it on office places and elsewhere, thus taking a load off of the demand at public clinics and pharmacies, with lots of offices closed, everyone is going to be funneled through the same, fewer access points.
Then there’s the personnel side, needing trained people to give the shots. Lots of these are already tied up in Covid responses, so hard to pull them off of that line to work flu vaccines.
This will be a big clusterfuck.
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The Flu vaccine’s effectiveness changes from year to year.
For one thing, no vaccine is 100% effective. But effectiveness is extremely high even if not 100%.
The problem with the flu vaccine is that because they have to be manufactured in massive quantities, before we hit flu season, and because flu can be caused by many different viruses, scientists actually make a prediction as to what they expect the upcoming flu season to look like in terms of the predominant viruses, and the vaccines are manufactured based on those predictions.
Most years the predictions work out very well. Every few years it may be off. Those years the vaccine is less effective.
In fact, one of the ways we know how effective the flu vaccine is by comparing flu deaths in years where the predictions were good to the years where the predictions happened to be way off, and the difference is at least 10s of thousands of deaths per year. And thats despite the fact that even in off years the vaccine is significantly effective.
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An interaction between influenza and COVID that isn’t mentioned here is that influenza has a tendency to set up a person for another respiratory infection a week or two after the flu itself abates. Presumably this happens because the flu causes damage to the lining of the trachea and bronchi, making them less capable of blocking the other pathogen from getting deep into the lungs. This is perhaps the strongest mechanism flu has to cause serious illness among the elderly.
It is possible that we won’t see this interaction between flu and COVID. It is even possible that exposure to flu, whether by vaccination or by an active infection, might give some temporary protection against COVID, by way of the flu exciting innate immunity factors that also fight against COVID, at least for the brief interval after the flu exposure that these factors remain at a higher state of activation.
Well, don’t count on a good interactive effect, and plan for the bad interaction, because we don’t know yet which it will be (if either), but so far the COVID has pretty consistently failed to fade away according to some theory or other that said we had no reason to bother taking any measures against it. It’s going to take years and decades of observation of its behavior to establish what to expect of the COVID,
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Now there’s the Trump bumperstick: Keep America a Clusterfuck.
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Maybe Americans need to have their tiny, velvety little hands held and soothing words whispered sweetly in their ears while soft music’s piped in so they can feel just right about getting their flu vaccines.
Perhaps fabulous sweepstakes prizes should be offered or just piles of cash.
Maybe you should carry a photo of your sweet, sainted grandmother to gaze at while the needle goes in.
Jesus, people, just put on your masks and go get a fucking shot.
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Good time to get your financial affairs in order before Dotard kills us off.
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You have me at “This will be a big clusterfuck.”
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Physical distancing measures and the fact that places like schools will be closed indefinitely, should have a huge, positive impact on the upcoming flu season.
ETA @richardinjax makes a good point. Count on higher rates of the flu in RED states as the folks who run them are idiots.
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Well come on down to the Sunshine State and get a Flu shot. We don’t social distance here or wear masks. It upsets our Governor. So come on down and you won’t get the flu. Probably COVID but it’s a small price to pay.
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An unmentioned upside is that the spread reduction measures many of us ARE taking because of COVID-19 will reduce the spread of influenza just as well.
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We’re not idiots. We just believe that any job worth doing is worth doing right. So when it comes to COVID we got it down. We’re number 1 baby!!!
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Yes, absolutely correct. But get the flu shot anyway. Particularly if in an older age group or at higher risk.
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Planning on it. We get ours every year at the Safeway pharmacy. No copay. And 2x a 10% off up to $200 of groceries coupon.
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You and I both. If I had to wrap myself in Saran Wrap head to toe, I’m finding somewhere to get that shot this year.
Strangely, last year was the first year I got my flu shot. I got it in tandem with my shingles vac.
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I feel the same way. I never got the flu shot because the one year I got the shot I also got the flu but I have come to realize that, like all vaccines, it is not just me I am protecting so this year I will get the shot and keep my fingers crossed.
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An exposure,to Influenza A itself, either by vaccination or active infection, does not generate any enduring immunity, but the different HN variant strains of the flu do generate some such protection. For this reason, we can’t just vaccinate once, perhaps with boosters, against flu in general, we have to give a different vaccine every year designed to protect against a limited number of flu strains. Because a different mix of strains is present in any given flu season, the vaccine has to be based on providing protection against the 3-4 strains that are projected, based on their prevalence late in the last flu season, to be most prevalent at at least the start of the upcoming season.
If you got the flu after being vaccinated, that could well be because they projected incorrectly which strains would be common that year. Science is not actually “magic that works”, so sue 'em. It could also be because you got one of the strains that weren’t common that year – they got the right 3-4 strains into the vaccine that year, but there’s always way more than 3-4 strains out there, and you were infected by one of the less common ones.
But even if neither of those conditions was true those times you got the flu after vaccination, your experience does not invalidate the actual purpose of annual flu vaccination, which is a public health measure, not an individual health measure. The vaccine doesn’t produce a protective reaction, even against just 3-4 strains, in everybody who gets it, but it doesn’t have to do that in order to create enough herd immunity to leave enough fewer people in the population susceptible to active infection that the flu can’t spread as effectively that year.
You don’t get the flu vaccine mainly to protect yourself against the flu, just as you don’t wear a surgical mask in public mainly to protect yourself from COVID. You do both of these things to protect the general public. However often flu vaccination has failed to protect you individually, it is still recommended that you take it, every year, without fail, because, playing the odds, year in and year out, it gives some protection to everybody else you come in contact with.
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