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The 2017-2018 flu season also overwhelmed US hospitals: https://time.com/5107984/hospitals-handling-burden-flu-patients/ https://time.com/5107984/hospitals-han

• Lewton 7y ago
  I agree, this event has also opened my eyes to how important the flu shot is
  • thaumasiotes 7y ago
    What about this event makes the flu shot more important than otherwise?
    • ceejayoz 7y ago
      It has always been important.
    • bryanrasmussen 7y ago
      If you have taken your flu shot and get flu like symptoms there is now a larger chance that you are experiencing a mild Coronavirus. For you it's not that important a statistic, but if everyone had flu shots it would be beneficial.
    • lordnacho 7y ago
      Flu is so common that people don't realise simple things like washing your hands and getting the shot would reduce the cost massively. With Covid19 we can all see the cost, upfront and at the same time. I'm wondering if we could actually kill the flu by sitting still for a bit. Say we stopped the world, which apparently is a possibility now. Would that get rid of it? And if it would, would it be worth it?
      • wool_gather 7y ago
        Interesting thought. My understanding is rather that the converse is true: we're headed for a world where both flu and SARS-CoV-2 are endemic.
      • breuleux 7y ago
        I'm no epidemiologist, but I doubt it. It just takes one infected person at the end of the global quarantine to get the ball rolling again. More importantly, though, the flu (just like SARS-CoV-2) is zoonotic, meaning that it can jump from animals to humans. Even if every human was flu-free, influenza type A still lives on in birds for example, and there's an everpresent risk of it jumping to human beings.
      • seymore_12 7y ago
        “All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” ― Blaise Pascal, Pensées
    • Lewton 7y ago
      Where I live it has been public policy to only recommend the flu shot to at risk groups. Never really gave it much thought before. Now I strongly disagree with the policy
    • DanBC 7y ago
      It's always important. People are learning a bit more about intensive care and the poor outcomes for people in ITUs. They're learning a bit more about respiratory illness and the impact it can have even if you don't die. They're also learning that flu isn't a trivial illness for quite a few people. (EDIT: I didn't downvote you, and I don't think an honest question deserves downvotes.)
• happytoexplain 7y ago
  Thank you. Too often this comparison is made to establish the ridiculous inverse argument: We don't take the flu very seriously, so we shouldn't take Corona very seriously.
  • d0mine 7y ago
    Why Covid-19 is worse than the flu, in one chart https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2020/3/18/21184992/coronavirus-covid-19-flu-comparison-chart https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2020/3/18/21184992/co...
    • dwild 7y ago
      He isn't saying Covid-19 isn't worse than the flu, he is saying that many people consider the flu not important, which meant that they would just as easily consider Covid-19 as unimportant, because the flu was the closest reference they had.
• sg47 7y ago
  Got my flu shot last year, still ended up with severe flu in February. The flu shot is not completely effective.
  • RHSeeger 7y ago
    True, but if everyone that _could_ get their shot did, it would be a lot less impactful to everyone.
  • blairbeckwith 7y ago
    Nobody is saying it is completely effective.
  • ceejayoz 7y ago
    It doesn't need to be completely effective on an individual level if enough people get it on a societal level.
  • endemic 7y ago
    Wonder what it would have been like _without_ the shot.
  • akmarinov 7y ago
    There are different strains of the flu and doctors sort of guess each year which strain to vaccinate for, seems like they guessed wrong in your case.
  • ncallaway 7y ago
    Literally nobody said it's completely effective. In fact, if you read the experts, you'll see the the flu shot is generally a cocktail against the most prevalent strains. Since strains are left out, it's absolutely known that the flu shot will not protect you against all influenza strains. See this page for information on how strains are selected: https://www.cdc.gov/flu/prevent/vaccine-selection.htm https://www.cdc.gov/flu/prevent/vaccine-selection.htm The flu shot is not a magical guarantee that you personally won't get the flu. What it does do is lower the rate of transmission for the flu significantly, by improving the herd immunity. People need to understand that getting the flu shot is less about helping yourself, and more about helping your community. Think of it like giving blood. It's an altruistic action that you can take to help others around you.
• Allower 7y ago
  Do you even know the average effectiveness of flu shots on any given year? Get your head out of your ass, COVID-19 is NOT COMPARABLE TO THE FLU.
• Zelphyr 7y ago
  Yes, I do. Helps that I live with a Nurse Practitioner. However, the number of people I know who are convinced that getting the flu shot makes them sick or gives them the flu and thus refuse to get the shot is shocking. Some things I've actually heard: "I get sick every time!" No, you don't. "It's a LIVE VIRUS! Everybody knows this!" No, it's not. You're just an idiot hanging around with idiots.
  • dominotw 7y ago
    > "I get sick every time!" No, you don't. This is possible theoretically . yes? There is no guarantee that you get lucky from flu shot at-least once.
    • kittiepryde 7y ago
      As it's been explained to me, you don't get the flu from the flu shot, but the vaccine forces a reaction from your immune system to prepare it to fight the real thing. The way your body reacts can make you feel sick, but you're not actually sick. And the way you feel is much more mild than what the real thing would do to you.
      • dominotw 7y ago
        oh makes sense. I didn't reliase that comment meant "i get sick every time" ( from flu shot). I thought it meant "i get sick every time" regardless of flu shot.
        • _ph_ 7y ago
          Then you were very unlucky in that you caught a different flu than the strains you were vaccinated against - there are 3-4 strains in a typical shot, but many more can come up during the flu season. Alternativey, you didn't have a real flu but a bad cold, which can be quite nasty in some cases.
      • jerf 7y ago
        Speaking for myself, I definitely do "get sick" when I get the vaccine, and it has a new strain in it. Sometimes flu shots don't change from year to year, and this year's doesn't actually have anything new in it. When there's nothing new I basically notice nothing. However, "get sick" is a very vague term. In my case, to be specific, about 3 through 9 hours after the shot with a new strain in it, the shot site is tender and I run a small, but noticeable, fever kind of thing, barely worthy of the term but definitely a bit of an elevated temperature. Then it subsides. It is basically a minor inconvenience. By contrast, while I don't get the flu every year, it can hang with me for two weeks and knock me out cold for a good three or four days in the middle. And the shot generally covers more than one flu. So yeah, both things may be "get sick" in some sense, but just because they both fit into the phrase "get sick" does not mean they are particularly comparable. (Incidentally, over the past 10 years I've managed to do a lot of improvement to my immune system for various reasons. When I got the shot with a less-strong immune system, I generally didn't notice any symptoms from a flu shot at all. Everyone's different, but I'd suggest you generally should notice some symptoms from an effectual shot.)
• endorphone 7y ago
  If there is a silver lining out of SARS-CoV-2, hopefully it's that we become more careful in general about infectious diseases, and we don't quickly just revert to the previous behavior. There are so many axis (axes) on which we can improve. Rethink doors with pull handles and common surfaces in trafficked areas (Union Station in Toronto has these all over the place. Hundreds of thousands of people and you're pulling common surfaces constantly). People wearing masks when they aren't feeling well or even if just that they're a bit worried, without it being a social wrong. Despite the social pressure on masks, I have noticed a huge uptick in people wearing masks here in Ontario. People staying home when they're sick. People having appropriate behavior when they are (even with a "cold"). And most contentious, we as a people just don't need to travel nearly as much. Aside from the environmental cost, many Western countries are particularly susceptible to these outbreaks because everyone is travelling everywhere constantly. For that meeting that could as easily have been an email. Etc.
  • ttul 7y ago
    I’m definitely getting all the doors in our office re-fitted with low touch handles and anti microbial surfaces. Everyone should be investing in some low tech stuff to reduce disease transmission. It’s not hard.
  • paulmd 7y ago
    Automatic doors seem miraculous right now.
• joegahona 7y ago
  I'd love a more comprehensive discussion about the flu shot, because I've only used anecdotal evidence, and I suspect a lot of other people do the same. The first two years I got the flu shot from my employer at the time was 2007-2008, and I got a violent flu both years. Didn't get one after that for years, until last Feb, when I felt like I was going to die. Eventually went to urgent care, where I got fluids and sheepishly acknowledged to the nurse that I skipped my flu shot. She kinda shrugged it off and said, "Eh, it's about 50/50 whether it will work anyway."
  • ceejayoz 7y ago
    We have lots of actual scientific evidence on this. The flu shot can't give you the flu. (The nasal spray can! Your doc will recommend against it if you're in certain categories, like being immune suppressed.) The efficacy varies from year to year, because they have to make an educated guess at which strains will be most prominent each year. https://www.cdc.gov/flu/vaccines-work/past-seasons-estimates.html https://www.cdc.gov/flu/vaccines-work/past-seasons-estimates... 50/50 is fine, for the same reason even imperfect handwashing and social distancing are better than nothing.
  • ttul 7y ago
    Since we are speaking anecdotally, I have had the flu shot every single year since 1994, which was the last time I got influenza. I have three kids and all of them get the shot every year too. They have never had influenza either. It works.
  • deleted 7y ago
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  • weusedto 7y ago
    I think Freakonomics did a fantastic piece on the flu shot and the low vaccination rate. This answers a lot of the questions being tossed around in this thread: https://freakonomics.com/podcast/why-doesnt-everyone-get-the-flu-vaccine-a-new-freakonomics-radio-podcast/ https://freakonomics.com/podcast/why-doesnt-everyone-get-the...
  • xbmcuser 7y ago
• adrr 7y ago
  We have decent coverage for the the Flu shot. 45% of the population over 18 received the shot. https://www.cdc.gov/flu/fluvaxview/coverage-1819estimates.htm https://www.cdc.gov/flu/fluvaxview/coverage-1819estimates.ht...
• throwaway5752 7y ago
  That's a good point, but from a response perspective the only thing they have in common is they are transmissible respiratory diseases. COVID-19 is 1-2 orders of magnitude more fatal, has a longer convalescence, is more severe in severe cases, multiple orders more infectious, and has no vaccine. Yeah, get your flu shot, be better prepared, but frankly I think since this is just very early in the crisis people are trying to compare this to previous experience when it is not comparable. Hundreds of thousands of people that might otherwise survive are about to be left to die for lack of capacity to save them. Possibly millions. At this point, it's too late to prevent it. Further, the US administration knew about it in time to take protective measures and did not. Nothing like this has ever happened in any of our lifetimes in the US.
• legulere 7y ago
  Stop comparing the Coronavirus to the flu. It’s the mistake that brought us to the current situation and which will bring us into much darker times than now if we don’t start to take things seriously.
  • slazaro 7y ago
    But that's precisely the point. If the hospitals get overwhelmed with the flu regularly, how can we expect to cope with the current virus which is way worse?
• fsh 7y ago
  The 2017/18 flu season was the worst in decades. Here in Germany it increased overall mortality rate by about 40% in March 2018. Italy has a similar increase due to COVID-19 right now, but in the most affected regions mortality is a lot higher. And this is with serious measures in place that were not done in 2017/18.
• de_watcher 7y ago
  That's so weirdly American: a top-voted post about flu shots. On EU forums literally nobody brings this up somehow.
  • bistro 7y ago
    Because everyone gets the flu shot in EU, or because nobody cares?
    • luch 7y ago
      No unless you're at risk (old person or with medical issues) you usually don't get the flu shot. The reason is to actually to build the so-called "herd immunity" I think. Same thing with antibiotics (no need to give evolutionary "ammunition" to virus and bacteria if we don't need to).
      • gruez 7y ago
        >The reason is to actually to build the so-called "herd immunity" I think. Same thing with antibiotics (no need to give evolutionary "ammunition" to virus and bacteria if we don't need to). I don't think that's the right comparison. Herd immunity refers to stopping a disease by spreading by making enough of the population immune so it can't spread. It doesn't have anything to do with evolutionary pressures or superbugs, like what you're alluding to with your second sentence.
      • wool_gather 7y ago
        There's a misunderstanding here. Vaccine confers immunity to an individual. Herd immunity means that an infection cannot get a foothold in a community if a certain portion of the members are immune. Widespread vaccination is important exactly because it produces herd immunity.
    • smcl 7y ago
      It's not that nobody cares. I think it's more encouraged for the elderly or other "at risk" groups whatever that might be but it's not really being pushed for anyone else. I'm in my 30s and have lived in the EU my entire life and I have literally never had one, for example.
• kiba 7y ago
  I made sure to get my flu shot very early last year. I only wished the shot cover every possible viruses.
• jshaqaw 7y ago
  Hopefully people who skip the flu shot because it makes them a little sore realize that increasing herd immunity SAVES THE LIVES OF OTHERS. I'll take a day of sore arm to save a life.
• phkahler 7y ago
  >> Everyone gets their flu shot, right? No, and that's ok. There is a lot of stuff written - even in science papers - that indicate differing things about those vaccines effectiveness. There is no universal "right" answer to your question. I'm assuming you thought it was rhetorical.
  • codetwelve 7y ago
    Can you provide a source of these "science papers"? Please only provide the peer reviewed repeated studies, not those agenda driven ones.
    • phkahler 7y ago
      https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2850385/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2850385/
• viklove 7y ago
  > Loyola University Health System in Chicago—which set a hospital flu-activity record of 190 confirmed cases between January 7 and 13 It's not even close to what we saw just this week from coronavirus. Stop making a comparison where there isn't one to be made, this is much worse than the flu.
  • js2 7y ago
    Coronavirus is serious. Also, get your flu shot. I don't understand why this is even remotely controversial.
    • mrb 7y ago
      I suppose his point is that the coronavirus overwhelms hospitals much, much more seriously than the flu does.
      • js2 7y ago
        All the more reason to get your flu shot to reduce the chance that you end up in the hospital using valuable space needed for Coronavirus patients. I'm not minimizing Coronavirus. I'm trying to leverage the attention people are paying to it to emphasize the importance of vaccination.
        • mrb 7y ago
          I agree, getting the flu shot is very important. My whole family gets it every season.
  • dingaling 7y ago
    > this is much worse than the flu. The CDC estimates that up to 710,000 Americans have been hospitalised by the flu in the past six months out of 54 million infected. Up to 59,000 of them died. IN SIX MONTHS. In the USA alone. https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/preliminary-in-season-estimates.htm https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/preliminary-in-season-e... Stop trivialising influenza.
• AzzieElbab 7y ago
  This comparison is invalid and dangerous. You can't compare some absolute numbers against the unknown. Just look at fatalities rate in Italy. This virus can turn your lungs into dust within days under unknown conditions