The flu vaccine (pre Covid). Always been pro vax in general, just never saw the need since I never had symptomatic flu. My immune system is good enough, right?
Well, it was like a switch flipped in my brain. One day, I suddenly realized getting the shot isn’t about me. If I don’t vaccinate, I get the flu, and I don’t have symptoms.
That makes me a carrier. I’m a disease vector. Somewhere throughout my day, I’m going to pass it on to some immunocompromised person, and I will be the reason someone’s grandma doesn’t make it for the holidays.
“Just the flu” still kills hundreds of thousands of people every year.
I am a pharmacist and have vaccinated thousands of people. I am always impressed when someone listens to the reasons why a flu shot is an important civic duty and decides to get one when they haven’t previously.
The Spanish Flu of 1918 killed between 1-5% of the world population. For perspective, COVID-19 killed about 0.1%. Consider a pandemic that was 10 to 50x (!!!) the effects of COVID and specifically killed young people from the ages of 20-40.
This was pre pandemic. They brought a nurse into the office to give everyone who wanted a flu vaccine. She wouldn’t do it.
I said to her that if she got the flu, she’d probably live, but she’d also pass it on to other people. She’d be contagious before she knew she was sick, so she might be on the subway and infect a bunch of vulnerable people. Old ladies. Little babies. Anyone.
She was like no that’s not how it works. That’s not going to happen.
I was like, why not? In what way is that not how it works?
“I’ll just stay home if I’m sick”
“What about when you’re contagious and don’t realize? Or if it hits when you’re already at work?”
“That won’t happen”
Just denial.
Can’t convince people with facts. You have to play on their emotions. Make them feel good about themselves, or reinforce something they believe in. I can’t always figure out how to do that
Wait, does the flu vaccine actually work like that? I didn’t kmow it did anything to dampen transmission. I’ve never gotten it because I have such intense needle phobia it didn’t seem worth it, but if this is true, then it has more benefits than I realized and that kinda changed the calculus a little
Yes, vaccination primarily reduces odds of infection. No infection = no transmission. Secondarily, vaccination reduces the symptoms of an active infection if you get one anyways.
It’s basically a numbers game. With a vaccine the flu can’t spread through your body because you have immunity. Meaning your body can fight of the flu so you don’t get sick/have symptoms (or at least all of that is greatly diminished). Since the flu can’t spread in your body, there is less flu in you for you to spread to others.
So more people vaccinated means less viral load in the community which means less people spreading and therefore getting the flu.
I guess that does kinda make sense, less viral load in the commumity = better. I always thought that, because it might only protect against 80% of the flu strains out there (or however good we guess for the season), that herd immunity can’t be achieved and there was no point
I definitely never heard of it presented as a measure to protect people around me
No. This person is clueless. vaccines don’t prevent you from catching a disease. they simple allow your immune system to deal with it better. the flu vaccine means when you do get the flu it will more like cold.
you are getting sick all the time, it’s just that your immune system works well against things it knows. you only get sick sick when you encounter a bug that your immune system hasn’t ID’d and can’t fight.
you can still spread viruses and bacteria to other people even without symptoms. you are doing it all the time.
This is mine too. Pre covid, my thought process was “I’m young and healthy and have had the flu twice in the last 15 years, I’d rather save the shots for someone who needs them, not me! I’ll just keep working my retail job and going to school even if I’m a little achey and sniffly, I can tough it out!”
Now I get them both every year. I still kinda feel like I’m taking a shot away from someone who needs it more, but I’m just trying to do my part!
You never get symptomatic flu? Can you please get to yourself to the nearest research hospital and get started on the genetic immunity or whatever it is you have. You may be the key for saving millions of lives and untold suffering.
A large portion of the population have immune systems that keep them from having symptoms of common diseases, or symptoms so mild don’t notice. That’s part of why transmission rates aren’t 100%.
There have been 254,485 notifications of laboratory confirmed influenza reported to the NNDSS in the year to 9 November 2026.
With a population of 27 million, that’s one in 100.
The reason it’s 1 in 100 in this country, and 1 in 8 worldwide, is because of our great healthcare system and protective social determinants of health, like nutrition and daily hygiene.
Since this is Lemmy, I assumed most people commenting would be from rich countries like Australia, so an Australian statistic would have better applicability to this population than a global statistic.
If I don’t vaccinate, I get the flu, and I don’t have symptoms.
That makes me a carrier. I’m a disease vector.
This is flawed. Vaccinated people clear quicker; and asymptomatic people aren’t spreaders. This is just ‘shedder’ bullshit, and you’d benefit from re-examining it or consulting someone with a relevant degree.
you can spread diseases with being asymtopatic. it very much depends on the strain. people with the covid vaccine could still get covid and spread covid.
it’s just that with the vaccine the risk of dying from it was gone, which is predominately for older adults.
we never gave covid vaccine to kids because it was no threat to them.
but OP here is very confident in their delusional understanding of how a vaccine works and what it is. and thinks it’s a ‘cure’ for a disease. because they have a vastly oversimplified idea that is factually wrong.
The flu vaccine (pre Covid). Always been pro vax in general, just never saw the need since I never had symptomatic flu. My immune system is good enough, right?
Well, it was like a switch flipped in my brain. One day, I suddenly realized getting the shot isn’t about me. If I don’t vaccinate, I get the flu, and I don’t have symptoms.
That makes me a carrier. I’m a disease vector. Somewhere throughout my day, I’m going to pass it on to some immunocompromised person, and I will be the reason someone’s grandma doesn’t make it for the holidays.
“Just the flu” still kills hundreds of thousands of people every year.
I am a pharmacist and have vaccinated thousands of people. I am always impressed when someone listens to the reasons why a flu shot is an important civic duty and decides to get one when they haven’t previously.
The Spanish Flu of 1918 killed between 1-5% of the world population. For perspective, COVID-19 killed about 0.1%. Consider a pandemic that was 10 to 50x (!!!) the effects of COVID and specifically killed young people from the ages of 20-40.
Get your flu shot.
I lost a lot of respect for a coworker over this.
This was pre pandemic. They brought a nurse into the office to give everyone who wanted a flu vaccine. She wouldn’t do it.
I said to her that if she got the flu, she’d probably live, but she’d also pass it on to other people. She’d be contagious before she knew she was sick, so she might be on the subway and infect a bunch of vulnerable people. Old ladies. Little babies. Anyone.
She was like no that’s not how it works. That’s not going to happen.
I was like, why not? In what way is that not how it works?
“I’ll just stay home if I’m sick”
“What about when you’re contagious and don’t realize? Or if it hits when you’re already at work?”
“That won’t happen”
Just denial.
Can’t convince people with facts. You have to play on their emotions. Make them feel good about themselves, or reinforce something they believe in. I can’t always figure out how to do that
Wait, does the flu vaccine actually work like that? I didn’t kmow it did anything to dampen transmission. I’ve never gotten it because I have such intense needle phobia it didn’t seem worth it, but if this is true, then it has more benefits than I realized and that kinda changed the calculus a little
Yes, vaccination primarily reduces odds of infection. No infection = no transmission. Secondarily, vaccination reduces the symptoms of an active infection if you get one anyways.
It’s basically a numbers game. With a vaccine the flu can’t spread through your body because you have immunity. Meaning your body can fight of the flu so you don’t get sick/have symptoms (or at least all of that is greatly diminished). Since the flu can’t spread in your body, there is less flu in you for you to spread to others.
So more people vaccinated means less viral load in the community which means less people spreading and therefore getting the flu.
I guess that does kinda make sense, less viral load in the commumity = better. I always thought that, because it might only protect against 80% of the flu strains out there (or however good we guess for the season), that herd immunity can’t be achieved and there was no point
I definitely never heard of it presented as a measure to protect people around me
No. This person is clueless. vaccines don’t prevent you from catching a disease. they simple allow your immune system to deal with it better. the flu vaccine means when you do get the flu it will more like cold.
you are getting sick all the time, it’s just that your immune system works well against things it knows. you only get sick sick when you encounter a bug that your immune system hasn’t ID’d and can’t fight.
you can still spread viruses and bacteria to other people even without symptoms. you are doing it all the time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herd_immunity
Stop spreading antivax pseudoscience
When your immune system kicks a virus out, you don’t catch the disease.
For your immune system to kick it out, it has to be in first.
This is mine too. Pre covid, my thought process was “I’m young and healthy and have had the flu twice in the last 15 years, I’d rather save the shots for someone who needs them, not me! I’ll just keep working my retail job and going to school even if I’m a little achey and sniffly, I can tough it out!”
Now I get them both every year. I still kinda feel like I’m taking a shot away from someone who needs it more, but I’m just trying to do my part!
You never get symptomatic flu? Can you please get to yourself to the nearest research hospital and get started on the genetic immunity or whatever it is you have. You may be the key for saving millions of lives and untold suffering.
A large portion of the population have immune systems that keep them from having symptoms of common diseases, or symptoms so mild don’t notice. That’s part of why transmission rates aren’t 100%.
Only 1 in 200 people get the flu each year. Lots of people never catch the flu in their life. Flu is pretty rare compared to the common cold.
1 in 200? No. Funny how the ones who don’t provide sources are the ones who spread nonsense.
1 Billion people a year get it. That is roughly 1 in 8.
Of these 3-5 million get severe illness, and out of that you get roughly 300-600k deaths.
Oh, you know what? I misread the statistics site and read NSW’s rate as the entire country’s. It’s actually around one in 100
https://immunisationcoalition.org.au/influenza-statistics/
With a population of 27 million, that’s one in 100.
The reason it’s 1 in 100 in this country, and 1 in 8 worldwide, is because of our great healthcare system and protective social determinants of health, like nutrition and daily hygiene.
Since this is Lemmy, I assumed most people commenting would be from rich countries like Australia, so an Australian statistic would have better applicability to this population than a global statistic.
This is flawed. Vaccinated people clear quicker; and asymptomatic people aren’t spreaders. This is just ‘shedder’ bullshit, and you’d benefit from re-examining it or consulting someone with a relevant degree.
Like, the three medical doctors and two pharmacists that told me this?
Will say it’s kinda funny seeing a word created in ignorance used itself in further ignorance.
you can spread diseases with being asymtopatic. it very much depends on the strain. people with the covid vaccine could still get covid and spread covid.
it’s just that with the vaccine the risk of dying from it was gone, which is predominately for older adults.
we never gave covid vaccine to kids because it was no threat to them.
but OP here is very confident in their delusional understanding of how a vaccine works and what it is. and thinks it’s a ‘cure’ for a disease. because they have a vastly oversimplified idea that is factually wrong.