As we head into flu season, you’ve probably heard an ad or two, or maybe received a call from your doctor, reminding you to get the flu vaccine. In our modern world, where getting ill usually means spending a few days in bed at most, the flu can seem trivial, like an illness that it isn’t worth taking the time to protect yourself from. But that lackadaisical attitude isn’t the real story. In 2017, an estimated 80,000 Americans died from the flu or related complications, according to estimates from the CDC. In recent years, annual flu deaths have ranged from about 12,000 to 56,000 people. It can be difficult to accurately assess the number of flu-related deaths because often the cause of death is not listed as the flu, and not all flu cases are reported. The flu is the most dangerous for young children and the elderly, although it has been known to kill healthy young adults as well.
Last year was an unusually bad flu season. In addition, the flu vaccine didn’t work as well as usual. Every year, scientists formulate a new vaccine based on predictions of which flu strains will be the most prevalent. Sometimes their predictions are inaccurate, leading to the creation of a vaccine that is less effective because it was designed to combat the wrong strain of flu.
Given anti-vaccination attitudes in our society, combined with the general sense that the flu isn’t that bad, many people opt not to receive the recommended flu vaccine. Other times, people get the vaccine and still get the flu anyway, so they decide it wasn’t worth it and forgo future vaccines, never realizing that while they did get sick, their illness was much less severe because of the vaccination. Sometimes, the difference after getting the flu vaccine is getting ill for a couple of days, as opposed to winding up in the hospital.
This leads me to why the anti-vaccination trend is so dangerous: it puts everyone at more risk, particularly people who cannot receive vaccines for medical reasons. There is a small subset of people who cannot receive vaccines due to health issues or other factors like allergies. Vaccines rely partially on a concept called herd immunity. The basic idea is that the fewer people there are who are susceptible to a certain illness due to being unvaccinated, the less likely it is that there will be an outbreak of the disease. A disease will have a much harder time spreading if 90% of the population is immune, as opposed to say only 40%. The specific percentage of people needed to achieve herd immunity varies by disease, but a vaccination rate of 80%-85% is considered sufficient for herd immunity for less-communicable diseases. More communicable diseases like measles require a higher percentage of the population to be vaccinated to achieve herd immunity.
People with diabetes have compromised immune systems, which make them less likely to be able to fight off illnesses. They are more susceptible to seasonal viruses like the flu, and are also more likely to be hospitalized if they do contract the disease. For this reason, it is vital that people with diabetes receive flu vaccines every year. And the rest of us also have a role to play—receiving flu vaccines to help protect the people who can’t.
Do your children, your elderly parents, your pregnant or nursing neighbor a favor, and head down to your doctor’s office or a local vaccination clinic to receive your annual flu vaccine. The best part is that you’ll be doing yourself a favor, too.
