Why Should You Get a Flu Shot?

Is it going to be a rough flu season or a mild one? In many ways, that’s up to you.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, the best way to minimize the spread of the flu is for as many people as possible to get a vaccination against the disease every year. When people vaccinated against the flu are exposed to the virus, it’s far less likely that they’ll contract it or spread it, so influenza can be stopped in its tracks.

Widespread vaccinations are believed to be responsible for preventing 5.3 million illnesses, 2.6 million medical visits and 85,000 influenza-related hospitalizations in a single season, according to CDC estimates. Simply put: People who don’t get sick because they got the vaccination don’t make others sick, according to Dr. Nolan Mischel, a Family Medicine physician at JPS.

“When someone has the flu, they shed particles of the disease all of the time they’re infected, often even after they’ve started to feel better,” Mischel said. “When someone is exposed to the virus after they’ve had the vaccination, it keeps the disease from multiplying and replicating in their body and it dies off. In that way it keeps other people from being exposed to the virus.”

People with health conditions like heart disease and asthma or those over the age of 65 can be more vulnerable than others to the flu, according to the CDC. When they can make such a difference in their health and the health of their community, why would someone opt not to get a flu vaccination?

“The reasons people cite for not getting a flu shot are based on misconceptions and misunderstandings,” Mischel said. “People falsely believe the vaccination can cause them to catch the disease or they underestimate the risks of catching influenza.

“People for some reason just believe they’re not one of the ones who are going to get sick,” Mischel said. “But, unfortunately, we sometimes see people who are pretty healthy end up with fluid in their lungs and on a ventilator in the ICU. A flu shot is a cheap insurance policy against that.”

Mischel said flu shots are designed to protect people from the most dangerous strains of the virus. While they might not be 100 percent effective against all strains of the flu, they often help to lessen the impact if you do end up catching the disease. That could be the difference between a few days of feeling lousy or ending up in the hospital.