I’m not coming to Hegseth’s defence (sorry, “war”) but I’ve had my flu jab every year for the last 30-something years, and it doesn’t prevent you getting flu, it can just make it milder.
Same as the Covid vaccine: It makes it less likely that you’ll catch it (though not bringing it down to 0%), and just as importantly, makes you less contagious if you do catch it.
The outbreak-stopping effect becomes strong when everyone is vaccinated. It doesn’t prevent every individual from becoming infected, but it inhibits disease spread through the population.
No, I know - I’m just worried that people will read the headline and think it makes you completely immune. It’s also based on what is calculated to likely be the most virulent strain of flu each year, but obviously there are many and they mutate. Even with 100% vaccination rates, some flu is going to be going around and some pitchfork-wielding, dribbling idiots will kick off saying that vaccination “doesn’t work”.
Oh absolutely, I think it’s really important that we talk about flu-vaccines as more something that works on a population level (and that makes disease milder for the individual), than something that gives full protection to the individual. We need to talk about it is such a way that when the driveling idiots talk about an outbreak, we can point out that the outbreak would have effected 10x more people (and have higher lethality) if there weren’t vaccines. We should never claim that these vaccines give full protection to any individual.
I’m not coming to Hegseth’s defence (sorry, “war”) but I’ve had my flu jab every year for the last 30-something years, and it doesn’t prevent you getting flu, it can just make it milder.
Same as the Covid vaccine: It makes it less likely that you’ll catch it (though not bringing it down to 0%), and just as importantly, makes you less contagious if you do catch it.
The outbreak-stopping effect becomes strong when everyone is vaccinated. It doesn’t prevent every individual from becoming infected, but it inhibits disease spread through the population.
No, I know - I’m just worried that people will read the headline and think it makes you completely immune. It’s also based on what is calculated to likely be the most virulent strain of flu each year, but obviously there are many and they mutate. Even with 100% vaccination rates, some flu is going to be going around and some pitchfork-wielding, dribbling idiots will kick off saying that vaccination “doesn’t work”.
Oh absolutely, I think it’s really important that we talk about flu-vaccines as more something that works on a population level (and that makes disease milder for the individual), than something that gives full protection to the individual. We need to talk about it is such a way that when the driveling idiots talk about an outbreak, we can point out that the outbreak would have effected 10x more people (and have higher lethality) if there weren’t vaccines. We should never claim that these vaccines give full protection to any individual.
It can certainly prevent large outbreaks when we’re talking close quarters contact like between people in the military.