Post by AndrewPost by ARWPost by AndrewPost by GBHave many people on this NG got flu jabs booked? Or had theirs already?
Not me. never had a flu jab. Had flu 3 times, 1979, 1983 and
2018. The first 2 were horrible but only lasted a day then groggy
for a couple more days. The first one was brought back by my
female boss from France where she went for a dirty weekend.
2nd probably caught from someone in The London Hosp.
2018 was nowhere near as bad but lasted about 4 days.
This is despite commuting from Sussex up to London, travelling
on the Victoria line to Kings X, Whitechapel, Hammersmith and
City of London for 30+ years.
You have only had flu three times?
Yes. I've had the lurgies plenty of times since, what nursy would
call 'man flu'. Real flu symptoms are unforgettable.
Flu is like the weather. It's doing the same thing as COVID.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-51097-w
Kickoff of Covid
https://www.ecohealthalliance.org/2020/01/phylogenetic-analysis-shows-novel-wuhan-coronavirus-clusters-with-sars
Phylogenic tree for Covid as it spread around the world.
Some parts of the world had one variant (bottom portion of tree),
while other parts of the world had a different variant.
Loading Image...Like influenza, one variant can become dominant, kicking
other variants to the curb, and that would be Delta in some
parts of the world at the current time. But it's not the
only variant, and if we checked, perhaps Peru has something
different. Your local news tends to accentuate the reporting
of the local flavor.
Each of these things, has a different mutation rate.
https://www.nature.com/articles/nrmicro.2017.118
"The evolution of seasonal influenza viruses is an important
source of disease burden, as it allows for the reinfection
of previously infected or vaccinated individuals"
...
"Influenza virus vaccines can provide effective protection against
infection when they are well matched to circulating viruses, but
there remains scope for improving vaccine production and delivery
to achieve better effectiveness"
The latter is partially, the long time to produce doses using
the chicken egg based method. You have to define the vaccine
target, well ahead of the actual season. On one particular season, the
vaccine was only 10% effective or so (a swing and a miss).
How will they do their seasonal flu vaccine planning this year,
when so few got the flu last year ? (Mask wearing, presumably)
Paul