3 ms·
Not saying this is good, but one should be aware that the flu shot is a bit of a special situation. Unfortunately it's a really poor vaccine compared to other c
by hannob 6y ago
Not saying this is good, but one should be aware that the flu shot is a bit of a special situation. Unfortunately it's a really poor vaccine compared to other commonly given vaccines, but it's an exception. The calculations how much the flu shot helps aren't pretty. You can also see this by the fact that in many european countries flu vaccination is not recommended for the whole population.
Most vaccines have amazing effectiveness. If you take something like measles, it's basically "take 2 shots and you have a more than 90% chance of being protected for a lifetime". This is a much easier win than "you need to have a shot every year and the effectiveness is varying somewhere between 40-60%".
Luckily it seems Covid vaccines are more like measles vaccines than like flu vaccines - at least in terms of effectiveness.
- maxerickson 6y agoWhy is the flu vaccine "really bad"? The average efficacy isn't necessarily high, but I don't see how that is enough to call it really bad. That gets balanced against the benefit it does have, the cost, the safety, etc.
- hannob 6y agoCompared to most other common vaccines. I'll try to clarify that.
- maxerickson 6y agoI still think you go to far. For instance, this study found that there is usually a net savings: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4521706/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4521706/ (the study evaluates medical costs and productivity, it's not doing a sentimental analysis to get to the savings) Of course there is lots of room to improve a vaccine that is sometimes only 10% effective, but a reduction in costs to society by operating a vaccination program is a pretty good place to be starting from.