Quote:
Originally Posted by HOOT
Then why is there a seasonal flu shot? Just for fun?
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The seasonal shot is pretty important too. For the elderly getting any flu can be pretty serious, which is why it is recommended that they get it. Unfortunately it's only about 60% effective in the elderly, which is why people coming into contact with the elderly are also encouraged to get it. For the rest of us, the chance of dying from most variants of influenza is pretty negligible, but it still really sucks to have it. Back when we had to pay for the seasonal vaccine a lot of companies either reimbursed employees for getting it or brought in a nurse to vaccinate their staff because the cost of vaccinating employees is way lower than the cost of having employees off with the flu (even when factoring in that maybe 10% of the working population at most gets it in a regular year). Now the province makes it free for everyone for the same reason - the costs of the vaccination program are less than the economic and health care system costs of the vaccination.
This year is a bit of an oddity because so far almost all of the influenza out there has been H1N1. If that holds up, then maybe the seasonal flu vaccine won't be much use this year. However, since flu season is really just starting (it usually peaks in January or February), it's possible the other strains could start to appear. Personally I got the seasonal shot because I spend a fair amount of time around people who are pretty high risk for complications from seasonal flu, but for a lot of people there might not be as much benefit as usual from the seasonal flu vaccine this year.