7 ms·

Who's "we"? I don't intend any hostility here. But I have never gotten a flu vaccine in my life, and it seems deeply silly to me to get a yearly shot just to c

by jaspax 5y ago

Who's "we"? I don't intend any hostility here. But I have never gotten a flu vaccine in my life, and it seems deeply silly to me to get a yearly shot just to cut down on the chance of mild illness. A quick poll of my acquaintances reveals that almost no one in my social circle gets flu shots, either. This makes me wonder whether the antagonism to mandatory COVID boosters is just an intensification of an existing divide between people who already get yearly jabs and people who don't, a divide which was mostly unobserved until now because it wasn't politically relevant. (Minor grammatical edits.)

dahart 5y ago
> it seems deeply silly to me to get a yearly shot just to cut down on the chance of a mild illness. Is it silly to get a shot in order to cut down on the chance of someone else having a mild illness turn severe or fatal?
tallanvor 5y ago
"We" are people intelligent to recognize that vaccination against diseases like the flu is a good idea even if we're healthy and unlikely to have significant complications. "We" know that the shot will make it less likely for us to get sick, and that we're more likely to have a mild case if we do get it after being vaccinated. "We" also recognize that getting vaccinated helps reduce the number of people who spread a virus that can be deadly to other members of society, particularly the very young, very old, and those with compromised immune systems. Getting vaccinated not only helps yourself, it helps those around you.
- jaywalk 5y ago
  "You are not intelligent because you make different personal medical decisions than I do."
  - jaspax 5y ago
    Indeed. Every time I read a post like the grandparent I move closer to full-blown antivaxx.
    - merrywhether 5y ago
      Pedantically, basing your stance purely on being tired of being told what to do _isn’t_ an intelligent strategy. Not saying that’s your entire stance, but emotional contrarianism is not a good reason to update your priors.
      - trevyn 5y ago
        It can move you closer to an environment where you aren’t often told what to do, though.
      - spurgu 5y ago
        It doesn't help when that thing you're being told to do is constantly changing, and in addition doesn't seem to change where it matters. It seeds doubt and uncertainty, which is surely what we're seeing all around us. No one knows what to do with Covid. And those who claim they do for certainty are sure as hell full of shit.
- potta_coffee 5y ago
  I was in the military for years. Vaccines galore for any and every conceivable illness. I was required to have flu shots. Every single flu shot I've had gave me the flu. Full blown sickness, within a day of receiving the shot. Since leaving the military I've not had a flu shot and I've not had the flu. Obviously it's anecdotal but you'll never convince me to start taking flu shots after such repeated experiences.
  - bink 5y ago
    That's not how flu shots work. You might have had an immune response that had you feeling down, but flu shots don't give you the flu.
    - potta_coffee 5y ago
      It's semantics whether or not full-blown flu symptoms are "the flu" or not; I get the flu shot, then I get sick.
      - edmundsauto 5y ago
        Except you aren’t going to risk getting very sick (pneumonia) from the vaccinated response. And you aren’t going to give the virus to someone else.
        potta_coffee 5y ago
        Enjoy your moral superiority, and I'll enjoy not feeling like dog crap for a week after getting the shot.
        spurgu 5y ago
        I find it insane that someone would argue against your personal experience like that. I've had the feeling all along that once we've started getting people forced into perpetual Covid vaccinations it's gonna move into seasonal influenza vaccines. Judging by this discourse my hunch is not far off.
ericmay 5y ago
Well. The flu isn't always mild, especially as you get older. Depending on the year a couple hundred thousand Americans wind up in the hospital and about 10-20k die. [1] Compared to COVID-19 (hence the "politicization of getting the vaccine) it's not that bad but it's still not great. Now what is the cost of getting a flu vaccine every year? Well, for most people it's 0. You walk in, get a shot, walk out. Arm is sore for a day or two at most and that's it. Then in getting the flu shot you reduce your own chance of getting the flu and reducing severity if you do get it anyway (which many people do), and you lower the risk for others who might be immunocompromised, susceptible to the flu, etc. Now I understand if you want to make the case that society shouldn't pay for it or that it's not worth it or w/e, but on an individual level there seems to be a ton of upside versus the downside. So what's the downside of the flu shot? You're inconvenienced. That's about it. Unfortunately it's hard to measure the value of that inconvenience versus the upside, so, as typical human nature goes, you just value your inconvenience and then decide not to get a flu vaccine. Unfortunately it's just human nature. The same human nature manifests in all sorts of "I got mine" kinds of ways, ranging from global warming to opposing healthcare for all (why don't they just get insurance like me?). If anything I think the dividing line isn't so much political (though it's now being used politically), it's who is willing to make sacrifices for the good of society. In the case of the flu vaccine here what I'm hearing you say is basically "welp, I don't see how it benefits me so I don't care". Is that not the case? > it seems deeply silly to me to get a yearly shot just to cut down on the chance of mild illness As someone who now just grabs the flu shot whenever it's available and I happen to be in a convenient spot the 1-3 days I might feel like crap seem like an awfully high price to pay for not getting a shot that takes 5 minutes. At least practically speaking. Idk. I don't like getting sick and the shot doesn't bother me at all. [1] https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/index.html https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/index.html
m-i-l 5y ago
I got the flu when I was in my late 20s. Up until that point, in common I suspect with most teens and twenty-somethings, I had thought myself pretty much indestructible, so would never have even thought about getting a flu vaccine - I thought that was only for the old and vulnerable. However, since that experience, I try and get one every year - even if you are young and healthy it can be pretty rough, and why risk having to go through that again if you can avoid it? To the GP's question, about whether catching something gives you better protection than having a vaccine, my (non-expert) expectation is that Covid is like the flu - my having had the flu won't give me protection for all future strains, so I'll keep on needing new vaccines periodically for those new strains.
- ericmay 5y ago
  > about whether catching something gives you better protection than having a vaccine It's also medically incorrect. When you get a vaccine you are literally getting a live virus injected into you. There's no difference for your immune system. One isn't "fake" and the other "natural". Period. To your point, viruses mutate and so similar to the flu and flu vaccine, if COVID-19 continues to mutate in ways that are different enough we'll have to get new COVID shots which use modeling to predict the likely virulent strains. People that are aghast about this concept are not really understanding the new reality we're in. The only hope is that if enough people get vaccinated quickly enough, a new strain won't mutate and cause the vaccines to lose some effectiveness. I think that's a wildly naive hope, though and the best path forward is just treating this like a worse flu and moving on with our lives.
  - blawson 5y ago
    > When you get a vaccine you are literally getting a live virus injected into you. This is false for the mRNA vaccines according to the CDC: mRNA vaccines do not use the live virus that causes COVID-19 and cannot cause infection with the virus that causes COVID-19 or other viruses. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/different-vaccines/mrna.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/different...
    - 5y ago
merrywhether 5y ago
Either you’re using the medical definition of mild (didn’t require hospitalization) or you haven’t gotten a true influenza infection in a long time. So many people call strong colds a “flu”, which creates confusion around its severity and contributes to people avoiding the vaccines. But real influenza will have you in bed for a week and set back your fitness for a month (making you tired after even moderate exertion). Getting my first real flu since childhood is definitely what got me back on the vaccine train. All this talk about mortality, I want to minimize even basic inconvenience to myself!
sharken 5y ago
It is exactly that, a divide between people who already get yearly jabs and people who don't. What is new is that those who get yearly jabs, now wants to mandate the other group to get yearly jabs. This is what I never want to see happen, we should have as much control as possible over our own body.

by jaspax 5y ago

dahart 5y ago

> it seems deeply silly to me to get a yearly shot just to cut down on the chance of a mild illness. Is it silly to get a shot in order to cut down on the chance of someone else having a mild illness turn severe or fatal?

tallanvor 5y ago

"We" are people intelligent to recognize that vaccination against diseases like the flu is a good idea even if we're healthy and unlikely to have significant complications. "We" know that the shot will make it less likely for us to get sick, and that we're more likely to have a mild case if we do get it after being vaccinated. "We" also recognize that getting vaccinated helps reduce the number of people who spread a virus that can be deadly to other members of society, particularly the very young, very old, and those with compromised immune systems. Getting vaccinated not only helps yourself, it helps those around you.

jaywalk 5y ago
"You are not intelligent because you make different personal medical decisions than I do."
- jaspax 5y ago
  Indeed. Every time I read a post like the grandparent I move closer to full-blown antivaxx.
  - merrywhether 5y ago
    Pedantically, basing your stance purely on being tired of being told what to do _isn’t_ an intelligent strategy. Not saying that’s your entire stance, but emotional contrarianism is not a good reason to update your priors.
    - trevyn 5y ago
      It can move you closer to an environment where you aren’t often told what to do, though.
    - spurgu 5y ago
      It doesn't help when that thing you're being told to do is constantly changing, and in addition doesn't seem to change where it matters. It seeds doubt and uncertainty, which is surely what we're seeing all around us. No one knows what to do with Covid. And those who claim they do for certainty are sure as hell full of shit.
potta_coffee 5y ago
I was in the military for years. Vaccines galore for any and every conceivable illness. I was required to have flu shots. Every single flu shot I've had gave me the flu. Full blown sickness, within a day of receiving the shot. Since leaving the military I've not had a flu shot and I've not had the flu. Obviously it's anecdotal but you'll never convince me to start taking flu shots after such repeated experiences.
- bink 5y ago
  That's not how flu shots work. You might have had an immune response that had you feeling down, but flu shots don't give you the flu.
  - potta_coffee 5y ago
    It's semantics whether or not full-blown flu symptoms are "the flu" or not; I get the flu shot, then I get sick.
    - edmundsauto 5y ago
      Except you aren’t going to risk getting very sick (pneumonia) from the vaccinated response. And you aren’t going to give the virus to someone else.
      - potta_coffee 5y ago
        Enjoy your moral superiority, and I'll enjoy not feeling like dog crap for a week after getting the shot.
        spurgu 5y ago
        I find it insane that someone would argue against your personal experience like that. I've had the feeling all along that once we've started getting people forced into perpetual Covid vaccinations it's gonna move into seasonal influenza vaccines. Judging by this discourse my hunch is not far off.

ericmay 5y ago

Well. The flu isn't always mild, especially as you get older. Depending on the year a couple hundred thousand Americans wind up in the hospital and about 10-20k die. [1] Compared to COVID-19 (hence the "politicization of getting the vaccine) it's not that bad but it's still not great. Now what is the cost of getting a flu vaccine every year? Well, for most people it's 0. You walk in, get a shot, walk out. Arm is sore for a day or two at most and that's it. Then in getting the flu shot you reduce your own chance of getting the flu and reducing severity if you do get it anyway (which many people do), and you lower the risk for others who might be immunocompromised, susceptible to the flu, etc. Now I understand if you want to make the case that society shouldn't pay for it or that it's not worth it or w/e, but on an individual level there seems to be a ton of upside versus the downside. So what's the downside of the flu shot? You're inconvenienced. That's about it. Unfortunately it's hard to measure the value of that inconvenience versus the upside, so, as typical human nature goes, you just value your inconvenience and then decide not to get a flu vaccine. Unfortunately it's just human nature. The same human nature manifests in all sorts of "I got mine" kinds of ways, ranging from global warming to opposing healthcare for all (why don't they just get insurance like me?). If anything I think the dividing line isn't so much political (though it's now being used politically), it's who is willing to make sacrifices for the good of society. In the case of the flu vaccine here what I'm hearing you say is basically "welp, I don't see how it benefits me so I don't care". Is that not the case? > it seems deeply silly to me to get a yearly shot just to cut down on the chance of mild illness As someone who now just grabs the flu shot whenever it's available and I happen to be in a convenient spot the 1-3 days I might feel like crap seem like an awfully high price to pay for not getting a shot that takes 5 minutes. At least practically speaking. Idk. I don't like getting sick and the shot doesn't bother me at all. [1] https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/index.html https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/index.html

m-i-l 5y ago

I got the flu when I was in my late 20s. Up until that point, in common I suspect with most teens and twenty-somethings, I had thought myself pretty much indestructible, so would never have even thought about getting a flu vaccine - I thought that was only for the old and vulnerable. However, since that experience, I try and get one every year - even if you are young and healthy it can be pretty rough, and why risk having to go through that again if you can avoid it? To the GP's question, about whether catching something gives you better protection than having a vaccine, my (non-expert) expectation is that Covid is like the flu - my having had the flu won't give me protection for all future strains, so I'll keep on needing new vaccines periodically for those new strains.

ericmay 5y ago
> about whether catching something gives you better protection than having a vaccine It's also medically incorrect. When you get a vaccine you are literally getting a live virus injected into you. There's no difference for your immune system. One isn't "fake" and the other "natural". Period. To your point, viruses mutate and so similar to the flu and flu vaccine, if COVID-19 continues to mutate in ways that are different enough we'll have to get new COVID shots which use modeling to predict the likely virulent strains. People that are aghast about this concept are not really understanding the new reality we're in. The only hope is that if enough people get vaccinated quickly enough, a new strain won't mutate and cause the vaccines to lose some effectiveness. I think that's a wildly naive hope, though and the best path forward is just treating this like a worse flu and moving on with our lives.
- blawson 5y ago
  > When you get a vaccine you are literally getting a live virus injected into you. This is false for the mRNA vaccines according to the CDC: mRNA vaccines do not use the live virus that causes COVID-19 and cannot cause infection with the virus that causes COVID-19 or other viruses. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/different-vaccines/mrna.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/different...
  - 5y ago

merrywhether 5y ago

Either you’re using the medical definition of mild (didn’t require hospitalization) or you haven’t gotten a true influenza infection in a long time. So many people call strong colds a “flu”, which creates confusion around its severity and contributes to people avoiding the vaccines. But real influenza will have you in bed for a week and set back your fitness for a month (making you tired after even moderate exertion). Getting my first real flu since childhood is definitely what got me back on the vaccine train. All this talk about mortality, I want to minimize even basic inconvenience to myself!

sharken 5y ago

It is exactly that, a divide between people who already get yearly jabs and people who don't. What is new is that those who get yearly jabs, now wants to mandate the other group to get yearly jabs. This is what I never want to see happen, we should have as much control as possible over our own body.