It’s flu season once again. We stand in grocery stores and on public transit covertly covering our faces as a cacophony of sniffles, coughs, and wheezes erupt like popcorn around us. Coworkers show up after only a day of absence, barely concealing their frigid misery. The fellow making your sandwich in the cafeteria doesn’t seem to be firing on all cylinders. You just hope that the kid who puked behind you in the movie theater had a piece of bad fish to eat. While a slim majority of us bother to make the harrowing journey to our local pharmacy in order to dutifully receive our yearly flu shot, a growing minority of enlightened conscientious objectors batter us with excuses for why they are undoubtedly exempt. “I got it last year and I got sick.” “I don’t trust vaccines.” “I don’t have time.”
One might wonder why a disease that has the capacity to quickly kill tens of thousands every year would be treated with such apathy. Perhaps it is because the disease is so common, or because it typically only has serious complications for the elderly, the very young, or those with preexisting health problems. Perhaps it is due to the erroneous assumption that, in the era of modern medicine, diseases are no longer a major threat to the human race. We have just barely crossed the threshold into a new decade and more than 2,100 people have already lost their lives this season to nothing more than the flu. Of those 2,100, 22 were children. Keep in mind that this year’s flu season has barely gotten started. The 2017–2018 flu season ultimately claimed the lives of around 80,000. While this much death would be astonishing in any other context, many people are hardly phased by it.
In 1918, as World War I was winding down in Europe, an enigmatic illness began to afflict people across the world. But while the four years of brutal war only succeeded in stealing the lives of 65,038,810, this disease would swiftly take approximately 50,000,000 lives in the span of only a year. All in all, a full one third of the world’s population was stricken with this potentially fatal disease. But this wasn’t some sort of exotic plague. This disease was merely a particularly potent strain of influenza. What was pernicious about it was that, unlike a typical outbreak of the flu, this strain was far more likely to kill healthy young adults than the elderly or very young.
But this was not the last time that particular strain of influenza would wreak havoc on society. It may be a distant memory now, but let’s look back just ten years to the 2009–2010 flu season. The infamous “swine flu” pandemic was not terribly dissimilar from the outbreak in 1918. The particular strain of influenza that struck the world that year, H1N1, represented only the second outbreak of its kind, the other being 1918. Unsurprisingly, it too disproportionately affected young people. And while there is no doubt that this outbreak was a global crisis, it took far fewer lives than did the 1918 outbreak. The main difference between the two were advancements both in terms of public health as well as the quick development and implementation of an H1N1 vaccine. And even despite all this, 0.001% to 0.007% of the world’s population was killed by the 2009–2010 H1N1 virus, and approximately 12,469 were killed in the United States alone. With this in mind, why do Americans take the flu with such little seriousness?
Despite a highly effective preventative tool — namely vaccination — being easily accessible and readily available throughout the country, far too few feel compelled to take advantage of it. For the 2017–2018 flu season, only around 50% of Americans had any plan to get vaccinated. Remember, that particular flu season claimed the lives of around 80,000.
Consider these 2015 statistics from the CDC:
50.4% of children aged 6 months to 17 got a vaccine
34.2% of adults aged 18–49 received an influenza vaccination
46.8% of adults aged 50–64 received an influenza vaccination
68.7% of adults aged 65 and over who received an influenza vaccination
Recall that the 18–40 age demographic, those who have the lowest vaccination rate today, accounted for nearly 50% of the 1918 pandemic fatalities. For the 2009–2010 outbreak 80% of fatalities were in people below the age of 65.
Modern medicine has afforded us an invaluable insight into how these viruses can be overcome. Certainly vaccines aren’t 100% effective. Certainly mistakes are made. Certainly there is a great deal of progress yet to be made. The failure, however, is not with modern medicine. The failure is with human arrogance and the assumption that preventing disease is somebody else’s job.
Consider these statistics from a 2015 study conducted by Wakefield Research:
69% of working Americans don’t take sick days because they don’t want to miss a day of work, even if they’re actually sick
62% of working Americans have gone to work sick
Nearly three in four parents have sent their children to school sick
60% of those surveyed saw their co-worker sneeze without using a tissue
The fact is that fighting disease is not somebody else’s job. Sure, there are scientists working around the clock at the CDC, WHO, and at research universities and hospitals throughout the world to keep the public safe from disease. But their work is useless if individuals do not take it upon themselves to do their part in fighting disease. It may be annoying to have to wash your hands more often. It may be annoying to have to drag yourself to get vaccinated, especially knowing that it may not work 100%. It may be annoying to have to stay home when you’re sick. But it is far, far easier to bear those burdens than to be responsible for the misery and even death of others or yourself.
You may have a litany of reasons for why you are exempt. Maybe you’re young and you don’t have to worry about these things. Maybe you really don’t want to miss that vacation. Maybe you’ll get behind at work. Maybe you reasonably doubt the efficacy of vaccines. Maybe you may make it a point of pride to prove that you’re not a germaphobe. These all sound great until you’re the one who is lying in the hospital bed with pneumonia.
And if the thought of terminal pneumonia does not stir up any sense of duty, consider the millions of individuals who you are putting at dire risk. While you may be confident that your immune system is rock solid, there are countless individuals across America with compromised immune systems. While you may voluntarily decide not to get vaccinated, many people are precluded from getting vaccinated for various reasons beyond their control. Not getting vaccinated is not merely a personal choice. You are not the only one who is being put at risk.
And if you do get sick, consider the elderly in your life, consider the young children you know. Consider your clients, your coworkers, your students, and your friends before you leave your house. Before you get on the bus with chills and the sniffles, think about the fact that you are exposing every person onboard to disease. It only takes a microscopic particle of infected fluid to assign to them what very well may be a death sentence. Chances are, it’s not worth it.
Whether or not you get vaccinated, whether or not you wash your hands, you might get sick this year. Chances are overwhelming that you’ll be miserable for a time but come out the other end unscathed.
