Monday’s Musings 9/26/22- The flu is coming- are you prepared?

Apparently the influenza, aka the flu, has been particularly vicious this summer season in the southern hemisphere.

I’ve been seeing article after article warning of an increased flu risk. Sometimes coupled with covid. We don’t know how covid is going to react this fall and winter. How could we? Many states have stopped tracking, and Johns-Hopkins’ Data in Motion dashboard has been rumored to be scaling back.

And the damage that has been done to willingness to get a vaccine will be here for a long time.

A look at the CDC flu vaccination coverage, shows a drop for age group 6 months to 17 years in the 2020-2021 flu cycle. And a slight increase for the 18-48. And a larger increase for the over 49, with the largest increase for 65+. The increases are good, although slight.

But the drop in 6 months to 17 years is alarming. The overall vaccination rate for all age groups encompassed in the larger range dropped from 63.7% to 58.6%. More than 5% points in a year.

Isn’t anyone else alarmed by this?

I find this scary. If parents aren’t vaccinating for the flu, what else aren’t they vaccinating for?

Another thing the articles are positing is the possibility of a twindemic. This means that there will be high levels of cases in both flu and covid.

Because reminder! Covid still kills Americans every day. Over 2,000 in the last 6 days alone.

Is the covid pandemic slowing?

Yes.

Should we still be absolutely concerned?

Also yes.

Does covid had the capacity to come back swinging? BF.7 anyone? Ba.5, which became the cause celebre in the late spring, as well as the most dominant Omicron variant causing most of the infections, is still around but ceding ground to the new variant.

I’m just waiting for the variant one that laugh at the vaccinations and the antibodies.

They’ve already found a coronavirus in bats that laughs at the vaccines.

And we start this entire mess over again.

Clock is ticking.

But for now, we have a new booster that is made specifically for the Omicron variants. And it was just released 3 weeks ago. Get it.

And get your flu shot too. Yes, you can get them both at the same time.

The life you save may be your own.