Question about flu and vaccinations

[musicalfrog]

Sorry if it's been asked already. New developments have made me wonder.

If flu causes so much serious illness and death every winter, why isn't everyone vaccinated against it to help reduce the spread? Instead of just children, the elderly and those who are clinically vulnerable /pregnant.

Because it's not necessary, anyone who wishes to can pay for one though

The people who are vaccinated by the NHS are the ones most likely to either die or spread it to someone who could die. We vaccinate to reduce the pressure on services not to prevent deaths

It’s done on cost v benefit, so the biggest gains are vaccinating young/elderly and it’s not worth the cost of vaccinating everyone else.

Much smaller death rate.

Because you're unlikely to die as for healthy adult.

Anyone can go get themselves the flu vaccine, and a lot of workplaces pay for it for their staff. The NHS give it to the more vulnerable- old, young, health conditions - everyone else can handle the flu pretty much.

Also flu isn’t as contagious as Covid which I suspect is the actual question behind this post.

Flu, unchecked, has an R number of around 1.2. Covid around 5. This means over 80% of the population needs to be immune to stop rapid spread.

It's quite a common white-collar benefit - an employer-funded flu jab.

I get one every year, and my employer pays. It's significantly cheaper for them to fund an el cheapo jab than it is for them to pay me sick leave if I catch the flu.

As with most things, if someone else is prepared to pick up the tab, it's not a priority for the Government.

Thanks @Merryoldgoat that helps. As obviously covid isn't dangerous to young healthy people either!

But it does beg the question, when hospitals are on their knees during a usual flu season, why don't more people get offered the vaccine? To flatten the curve, as it were?

I think they do get offered it but uptake is low. It's pretty unusual to be hospitalised with flu if you aren't in a group that has been offered the vaccine.

Covid is very different - most healthy adults only get flu occasionally, maybe once every 10 years or less. I'm 40 and had it at age 38 and age 24 and not in between. A lot of people claim to never have had it. Whereas 25% of the population had covid just in 1 year, and that was with lockdown measures

Every job I ever had they offered us a free flu vaccine and most people accepted.

Now I pay for it privately. Because I don’t want flu.

The NHS only pays for things it needs to: it doesn’t care if I feel fluey for a few weeks as long as I don’t need hospital care.

That's kind of what I mean though. Every winter the NHS is put under huge pressure. I may be wrong but I'm guessing that flu is the reason. So why not ease the pressure by offering everyone a vaccine. Uptake may be low but it would still be more than have it currently.

Hmmm. Makes you think doesn’t it?

The NHS didn’t pay for the COVID jab, the gvt did and they’re not about to do an about turn now. They paid for it and they’ll continue to shove it down our throats until they bloody well can’t anymore.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not anti-vac but I am highly suspicious about the numbers and the way the gvt have prioritised things.

I’d encourage you to read this article about immunisation, herd immunity and the basic bloody maths:

www.wsj.com/articles/well-have-herd-immunity-by-april-11613669731?fbclid=IwAR2bEn-JLkJzzJQhOLEvTmLIGgkCqCRhmgxibzvkni-vWyHqgLrz6wuN_LE

You can pay for a flu jab at any pharmacy if you don’t qualify for it on the NHS. It only costs around £12. It’s well worth it IMO. I forgot two years ago and ended up with a really bad bout of flu, which turned into pneumonia. I was very nearly hospitalised.

However, I was 49 then. For younger people, flu is really very unlikely to lead to serious illness. (I know there are exceptions obviously.)

Whereas with Covid, there is a minority of cases (one in ten) that lead to long Covid. It can also impact on younger people who were previously fit and healthy and economically active in a way that flu doesn’t, or at least not nearly so much.

@Mittens030869

You can pay for a flu jab at any pharmacy if you don’t qualify for it on the NHS. It only costs around £12. It’s well worth it IMO. I forgot two years ago and ended up with a really bad bout of flu, which turned into pneumonia. I was very nearly hospitalised.

However, I was 49 then. For younger people, flu is really very unlikely to lead to serious illness. (I know there are exceptions obviously.)

Whereas with Covid, there is a minority of cases (one in ten) that lead to long Covid. It can also impact on younger people who were previously fit and healthy and economically active in a way that flu doesn’t, or at least not nearly so much.

Where are you getting your figures from?

I heard in on the BBC News recently, when there was a lengthy piece on long Covid. The focus was on HCPs suffering from it and there was a push for compensation for those who couldn't work anymore. I haven't heard of anything like it where flu is concerned.

Having long Covid myself, it's obviously something I follow closely.

It's obviously still very much a minority of cases. But it's really struck me, when on the Facebook support group for long Covid, how many sufferers were previously young and active (30s and 40s).

I don't fit into this category; I'm 51 and obese so I was always likely to be vulnerable.

The NHS would still be on its knees even if everyone had had the flu jab maybe? Not that effective (say 60%)? doesn't stop transmission etc? there'd still be other seasonal pressures eg respiratory, pneumonia?
Plus the flu jab is a 'best guess' as it gets tweaked each year.

@Mittens030869

I heard in on the BBC News recently, when there was a lengthy piece on long Covid. The focus was on HCPs suffering from it and there was a push for compensation for those who couldn't work anymore. I haven't heard of anything like it where flu is concerned.

Having long Covid myself, it's obviously something I follow closely.

Compensation from who?

I’m sorry you are suffering from long COVID but sating that 1 in 10 are getting it from a disease that has a 0.25% communicable rate is just scare mongering. It leads people to believe they have a 1 in 10 chance of suffering what you are suffering. Which is just not true.

Who do you think you’re getting compensation from?

@musicalfrog

That's kind of what I mean though. Every winter the NHS is put under huge pressure. I may be wrong but I'm guessing that flu is the reason. So why not ease the pressure by offering everyone a vaccine. Uptake may be low but it would still be more than have it currently.

It's not necessarily very effective though, because the circulating strains change every year, so they have to guess which ones to put in the vaccine in advance. Anywhere between 3-50% effective, from the data I've seen.

So even if everyone had it, flu would still spread.

@EarlLeighIndamornin

Compensation from whom?

I wasn't talking about myself there, I'm not an HCP. I assumed that the compensation would be from the government because of the lack of PPE at the start of the pandemic. It was a BBC report. I'm not an HCP, so I don't qualify!

I took the one in ten stat to be of symptomatic Covid infections, not including asymptomatic spread. Also, 'long Covid' describes any Covid infection that lasts for six weeks and over, they don't all last for many months.

It's not my intention to 'scare monger' and I apologise if that's how it came across. I was quoting what was said on the BBC. And, I also said, obviously it doesn't happen in 90% of cases.

@musicalfrog

That's kind of what I mean though. Every winter the NHS is put under huge pressure. I may be wrong but I'm guessing that flu is the reason. So why not ease the pressure by offering everyone a vaccine. Uptake may be low but it would still be more than have it currently.

I guess it's similar to paracetamol... why demand a presciption when you can get a packet for about 20p? Flu jabs cost anything between £5 - £13 but it'd put a massive workload on the nhs to administer them to all and sundry. Would you be happy if GPs were offering less appointments because they're busy vaccinating people?

@Gubanc

People pay at pharmacies not at GP surgeries. GP surgeries offer the jab to clearly defined groups for example those with asthma (my DH qualifies). It's also administered by practice nurses not GPs, so it doesn't interfere with GP appointments at all.

[quote Mittens030869]@Gubanc

People pay at pharmacies not at GP surgeries. GP surgeries offer the jab to clearly defined groups for example those with asthma (my DH qualifies). It's also administered by practice nurses not GPs, so it doesn't interfere with GP appointments at all.[/quote]
You're right. It's the nurses appointments that would be less available and still lots of people would miss out on appointments. In my area it's a nurse you see for cervical and breast cancer screenings. I wouldn't be happy to wait longer for any of those because they have to vaccinate the whole population.