With January and February being the height of the flu season, it’s still early enough to get the flu shot and have a chance to avoid the flu this winter.
Andrea Williams, a freshman at SLCC, wished that she hadn’t passed on the opportunity to get a flu shot last flu season.
She consciously made a choice to not get the shot. The result was a week long illness and a few days spent in bed. She had the flu.
“It was my first semester at college and I remember there was a student in one of my classes who came to class pretty sick,” says Williams. “A couple of days after that, I was throwing up and had a fever of 102.”
After Williams got over her flu, she made her mind up to not pass on the flu vaccine again.
Afraid of needles
Anthony Jacobs, an SLCC graduate, also does not get flu shots. He has been lucky in his adult life to avoid any major flu, but his reasoning to not get the flu shot has more to do with needles.
“I just hate them,” says Jacobs. “I avoid having any shots, unless it really is necessary.”
While Williams now sees the flu vaccine as a necessity, Jacobs on the other hand does not. Jacobs knows his risk at getting the flu, but he would rather risk getting sick than getting the shot.
The sooner the flu shot is given, the better chance there is to not get the flu
The flu vaccine takes about two weeks to set in for the antibodies to develop in the body.
The Center for Disease Control (CDC) have conducted studies over three decades regarding flu related deaths. Each year in the US between 10 and 20 percent of the population are infected with the flu virus.
The most affected by flu related deaths are those 65 years old and older. Ninety percent of flu related deaths are the elderly.
Statistics like these are important to local companies such as Intermountain Healthcare (IHC) for the safety of their patients and employees
In recent years IHC has made the flu shot mandatory for all their employees unless employees have a valid health concern for not getting vaccinated. Suspension, even, termination of employment can be the result for not complying.
To help employees comply with the mandatory flu vaccine, they offer free flu shots to all employees.
IHC is not the only company that offers free flu shots to their staff. SLCC also offers free flu vaccines to their full time staff.
Flu shots are also recommended to the students at SLCC as it is a high traffic area where the flu virus can easily spread.
