Audax67 wrote:There isn't a global panic every flu season because the strains have usually been sussed out in advance and vaccine made available; and enough people get vaccinated to provide a degree of herd immunity* for everyone.
The Wuhan virus is a novel variety for which no vaccine is available, so public health measures - "lockdown" - are all we have to fall back on. That, and general anti-viral/anti-flu drugs.
* Herd immunity which anti-vaxxers ride on the back of, more's the pity. Not to put too fine a point on it, if anti-vaxxers get sick and die it's better for the rest of us since it removes their wrong-headed propaganda from the media. Not allowing your children to be vaccinated should be a criminal offence.
I agree - in part.
However, under current NHS rules, flu vaccine is offered FOC only to certain at-risk groups: primary school and younger children, those aged 65+, those with underlying health issues (e.g. asthma), pregnant women, carers of elderly or disabled people. This seems to suggest that the vaccine is primarily intended
to deal with the risk of more serious complications, rather than to promote 'herd immunity'. If the latter were intended, then
everyone ought to be vaccinated (as is the case with MMR).
Of course MMR is a single-shot (OK: 2-shot) vaccine which hopefully provides immunity for life. I recognise that no flu vaccine can do that - hence it has to be re-administered every year. I suppose giving flu vaccine to everyone FOC would be too costly for our beleaguered NHS!
Since I tick two boxes in the above list, I have been offered flu vaccine for several years now. Up until last year I consistently refused the jab, feeling that it was ineffective because of the constant mutation of the virus. But last November I relented - when I happened to be at the doctor's for a quite different complaint. So he gave me the jab there and then.
At present I have a slight cold. Runny nose and sneezing. It's probably a variety of Coronavirus - but not
the Coronavirus....
