And as a counterpoint to the previous post, let's look at this tweet, the crux of which is that the normal flu has been endemic for all of our lives, and most of us never even think of it much. Some of us get a flu shot (me, last year and going forward) or don't (me, before last year). I'm assuming that in the typical year, most of us don't get the flu. I've gotten it, I think, once in living memory. "Actions are regularly taken by health depts & hospitals. You just don’t notice them because our threshold for action is low enough to allow those actions to be hyper-targeted."
I was surprised to learn that between 12,000 and 61,000 (2010-2019) Americans die of flu - normal flu - every year. I don't know why it varies so much, but it probably has something to do with which variants show up each year, and whether that year's flu shot ends up being effective against them. So it's a bigger deal than I thought.
But still... life has gone on without most people thinking about the flu at all. Will that be the case in the new world, regarding COVID? Over 60% of children in America and around 45% of adults got a flu shot each year before COVID, and in the last year, those numbers have gone up. As time goes on, all the available COVID vaccines will win permanent approval (or fall by the wayside), and, one may only hope, the political polarization that keeps a large minority of Americans unvaccinated will fade from consciousness as the years go by. The pandemic may, as one if its benefits, result in higher levels of vaccinations for all kinds of flu, which is good for individuals and for the herd itself. Will COVID vax be integrated into your flu shot in years to come? Early results suggest, maybe so!
Stay tuned.
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