It is prudent to recognize that Covenant’s campus will likely be visited by multiple viruses this semester. The most common of these are influenza viruses, rhinoviruses (cause of the common cold) and our current coronavirus, each of which cause respiratory illness with many overlapping symptoms (stuffy nose, body aches, general lethargy). As it is possible to be sick from multiple viruses at once, it is particularly pertinent this flu season to be vaccinated.
Made from dead or weakened pathogens (such as bacteria or viruses), vaccines are used to help the body’s immune system recognize these pathogens before they can make you sick. That’s a simplified explanation, but really it is a marvel that this actually works. The flu vaccine is distributed widely in order to prevent or blunt flu illness, which roughly 40-50 million Americans suffer from yearly. As many as 60,000 of these people will die from the flu.
Vaccines are occasionally construed as risky; however, associated complications are very rare. For example, Guillain-Barré syndrome sees a weakly correlated increase of 1-2 cases per million doses of vaccine each year. Similar flu vaccine risks are extremely small compared to the tens of thousands of lives that may be saved due to widespread vaccination.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that just under 200 million vaccines will be available for this 2020-2021 flu season, about a 10% increase in the number of flu vaccines created for the 2019-2020 flu season. This means that we have more vaccines available to us than ever before. To understand why the vaccine is widely administered, it is helpful to know what is in the seasonal flu vaccine which our campus health center faithfully champions each year.
The vaccine is really a cocktail of vaccines against a number of strains of the influenza virus that are targeted each year. There are four types of influenza virus—A, B, C, and D—but only flu A and flu B are implicated in seasonal epidemics. Depending on where you get your vaccine, you will likely receive either a 3-strain vaccine or a 4-strain vaccine for both flu A and flu B. The particular strains of virus used to create the seasonal vaccine vary from year to year because influenza viruses are dynamic in their genetic composition. This difficult-to-predict variation among flu strains provides good reason to vaccinate year-on-year, as the viruses circulating each season may be different from the previous season.
The seasonal flu vaccine is widely administered as a practical preventive measure against influenza. The CDC routinely studies flu vaccine effectiveness (VE) to determine how much the vaccine really works in preventing flu illness in vaccinated populations. Yearly studies since 2004 have reported a VE percentage ranging from 10% to 60%, values which represent risk reduction. For example, individuals who receive a flu vaccine with a VE of 40% have on average 40% less risk of contracting the flu, adjusted for age, sex, and preexisting illness. By vaccinating, you are reducing your risk of flu sickness.
Getting a flu vaccine is also a practical way to love your neighbor, and especially the most vulnerable, which is inescapably in line with Jesus’ model to love the “least of these.” Vaccinating is a means of protecting your neighbor from the flu virus. If vaccinated, you have a lower likelihood of getting the flu and, thus, passing the flu to someone else. This reasoning informs collective protection of individuals who cannot get the flu vaccine, such as very young children.
As many as 30-60,000 Americans die yearly from a preventable illness for which a vaccine is readily available. Now is the time to be vaccinated.
Where and when to get a flu shot
The flu shot is readily available in local pharmacies, such as Walgreens, CVS, and pharmacies in supermarkets such as Food City, Walmart, and Publix. Most pharmacies will have received and begun distributing the vaccine by now. Publix and Food City offer the vaccine for walk-in customers. Many of these pharmacies provide the flu vaccine free after insurance. Covenant’s Priesthill Health Services typically offers the flu vaccine for $15 starting in mid- to late September.
Some pharmacies even give monetary incentive. CVS gives a shopping pass for $5 off a $20 purchase. Publix Supermarket on North Market Street gives a $10 store gift card with each flu shot administered.
After receiving the seasonal flu vaccine your body will take about two weeks to develop antibodies against various strains of the virus; t. This represents a delay in immunity. Because of this, it is best to get the vaccine before the flu season begins sometime in October, making September the optimal time to vaccinate.
For more information, see https://www.cdc.gov/flu/.