Vaccination & epidemic

[orthodoc]

Originally Posted by glatt

I don't get flu shots anymore, but I encourage everyone else to. You all can take the risks and protect me. I'll just wash my hands and not touch my face so much.

What specific risks do you mean, glatt? There's a small risk of feeling a bit tired and achy for a couple of days. For people allergic to eggs there's a flu vaccine made without eggs, although even people with egg allergies can usually get the vaccine without problems.

The problem is that 'we all' can't protect you if too many people choose not to get the vaccine (see herd immunity, above). Washing hands and not touching your face is good, but influenza is also droplet transmitted. Someone who sneezes puts two general types of droplets into the air: large ones that fall due to gravity within about six feet (thus the six-foot distance rule), and small ones that remain aerosolized for prolonged times, on the order of hours. That cloud of small droplets will remain and slowly spread in a room long after the person who created it leaves the room. That's how you can get 'flu without any recognizable contact with sick people (along with fomites on doorknobs and phones etc.). Influenza isn't a benign disease; even if it doesn't put you in hospital you may pass it on to someone who will die from it.

If you believe the risks of the shot, whatever they may be, are unacceptable for you, a healthy adult male with a presumably functioning immune system, on what basis do you encourage others to get the shot and assume those unacceptable risks in order to protect you? That's not my general impression of how you argue and think.