Don't get a flu shot!

[Troxx]

A quick search on google yields a quick overview of the 1918-1919 Flu pandemic.

https://virus.stanford.edu/uda/

In the fall of 1918 the Great War in Europe was winding down and peace was on the horizon. The Americans had joined in the fight, bringing the Allies closer to victory against the Germans. Deep within the trenches these men lived through some of the most brutal conditions of life, which it seemed could not be any worse. Then, in pockets across the globe, something erupted that seemed as benign as the common cold. The influenza of that season, however, was far more than a cold. In the two years that this scourge ravaged the earth, a fifth of the world's population was infected. The flu was most deadly for people ages 20 to 40. This pattern of morbidity was unusual for influenza which is usually a killer of the elderly and young children. It infected 28% of all Americans (Tice). An estimated 675,000 Americans died of influenza during the pandemic, ten times as many as in the world war. Of the U.S. soldiers who died in Europe, half of them fell to the influenza virus and not to the enemy (Deseret News). An estimated 43,000 servicemen mobilized for WWI died of influenza (Crosby). 1918 would go down as unforgettable year of suffering and death and yet of peace. As noted in the Journal of the American Medical Association final edition of 1918:

And yeah, just be aware that our regularly used anti-virals for influenza aren't really a silver bullet. They can help, but for the most part even in an ICU you're looking at supportive care and crossing your fingers. If something that virulent makes the rounds again in the absence of a vaccine ready to thwart it ... there will be neither enough Tamiflu in US pharmacies nor ICU beds within US hospitals to care for those that get disproportionately ill. So why does the US govt push the flu shot so hard each year? That's why.

That's the nasty thing about influenza ... it's really damn contagious, and both the virulence and morbidity/mortality any given year can be unpredictable. The flu shot isn't 100% either, but if you look at the models of how disease spreads both within a community and amongst connected communities, even getting a flu shot on the 'bad years' (like last year) has a huge impact on the ability of the illness move around.

The sad thing is despite overwhelming evidence, there are those among us who will just don their tinfoil hats ...