01-05-2022, 12:22 AM
(01-04-2022, 11:33 PM)plam Wrote: ...
(01-04-2022, 12:34 AM)danbrotherston Wrote: FWIW...as a result of this pandemic, I'm much more aware of the harm caused by the flu. It kills (in the US, where the numbers I saw are from) tens of thousands of people including hundreds of children every year. I'm no longer satisfied with our public health response to the flu. Our flu vaccination programs should be much more widespread, and it's shocking to me that the flu vaccine isn't free everywhere in Canada.
The flu vaccine is not free in some provinces? It is not free in NZ, which is shocking to me. The other unfortunate thing about the flu vaccine is that the efficacy is actually pretty low.
It's not free in BC except for vulnerable people. I was also surprised, I don't know about other provinces.
It's also not free in the Netherlands, again only for vulnerable people. In both cases you can pay to get it.
The efficacy isn't that high, although I think the goal is to improve it.
The other thing, as we've now all learned, is that efficacy is a complicated thing, I think the efficacy of "you won't get the flu" is low (although still very significant, more than the current 2 dose COVID vaccines are proving to be with Omicron), but the "your flu will be less severe" is much harder to measure.