‘People Need to Be Reminded About Flu’

The flu shot has been off for 25 years.

Ms. Gibson, a retired office manager for a medical practice in Beverly Hills, said she did not get the flu.

She had a head cold a few years ago, and had one bout back in the ’80s. She said that she didn't do the vaccine because she didn't get sick.

She said that Ms. Gibson doesn't distrust vaccines in general. She got flu shots when she worked at an adult day center, and her three children were always up-to-date on immunizations.

Even though she is more vulnerable to illness after two recent heart attacks, she doesn't.

This year, people like Ms. Gibson make doctors uneasy. Dr. Schaffner said that people need to be reminded about flu because of the preoccupation with Covid and vaccine fatigue.

Americans tend to sound cavalier about the flu, so it was a good idea to compare Covid-19 to flu. There are between 12,000 and 60,000 deaths from the flu in a mild year. Most flu-related deaths occur in people over the age of 65.

Flu causes hundreds of thousands of Americans to go to the hospital each year, and evidence is emerging that it is related to other serious diseases.

More than 10 million older Americans have not been protected from the flu in recent years because they have remained stuck at 65 percent.

The rate appears to be even lower this year. Almost 20 percent of Medicare fee-for-service beneficiaries had already been vaccined in October of 2019, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Only 11 percent of seniors received a shot in October.

The co-director of the Cornell Institute for Disease and Disaster Preparedness said that he thinks it will be a bad flu year. The trajectory is the same as before bad flu years. There is an incredibly low rate of vaccination reported among older people.

The H3N2 strain poses a particular threat to older people, although existing antiviral medications appear to be effective against it.

The flu infections plummeted last season despite fears of a "twindemic" that would hospitalize both flu and Covid-19 patients. Dr. Schaffner said the season was the lowest ever.

Dr. Schaffner said that last winter they were all wearing masks. Last year children were all learning remotely because of the flu. According to the C.D.C., outpatient visits for flulike illnesses are climbing in the East and Midwest.

If the flu season is moderate, with returns to school, work and travel, and with the rampaging Omicron variant, this could be the year that both flu and Covid patients swamp struggling hospitals and health systems.

Flu can lead to other health crises in older patients, according to researchers. Canadian researchers found a link to heart attacks.

The risk of having a heart attack is six times higher for Ontario residents who have had the flu, according to Jeffrey Kwong, a senior scientist at ICES. The results have been found in other studies.

Increased stress on the heart might be the cause. He said that the vaccine can decrease the risk of hospitalization and death from heart attacks.

A new study in the journal JAMA Neurology found that there was an increased risk of developing Parkinson's disease a decade or more later if you were exposed to the flu.

What makes it difficult for older adults to bevaccinated? It appears that improvement is possible. According to the C.D.C., last year when public health strategies emphasized flattening the hospitalization curve, protecting essential workers and preserving resources for Covid patients, the proportion of older people who were vaccination against flu rose.

A new C.D.C. study has found that many unvaccinated Medicare beneficiaries visit a health care provider during the flu season, with even more missed opportunities among Black and Hispanic beneficiaries.

In most years, one-third of older people, like Ms. Gibson, don't bother with vaccinations. They may think that a vaccine that is 40 to 60 percent effective won't make a difference.

Even if people get the flu, the shot reduces the risk of hospitalization. Someone would turn down a chance of avoiding a serious illness. Dr. Hupert said so.

Older patients may not be getting enough recommendations from their health care providers. Many patients rely on specialists who aren't trained in routine care and don't stock flu vaccines in their offices.

Older people are responsible for seeking out shots. It's not too late to get a flu vaccine because it takes 10 to 14 days for full immunization to develop. February and March are when flu is most common in the US.

Flu vaccines and Covid shots can be received at the same time, and patients need both, because neither protects against the other disease. The older population will benefit from the two flu vaccines, Fluzone High-Dose and Fluad Quadrivalent.

Some of his patients are weary of the whole thing, and they say, "You're telling me I have to get another vaccine?" For their own health and for the sake of a stressed health care system is his response. Yes, they do.