Vaccines are really necessary

Do you think you had any vaccine strength left when you got Covid this time? When I had Covid it wasn’t long after I’d had the third dose and, while I was pretty ropey for a few days, I certainly wasn’t ill enough to need medical attention. I was just curious whether previous vaccines from ages ago still have any influence on Covid if you catch it long after your last jab.

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Good question, I suppose that is an individual thing as we are all different.
As your body has created the correct antibodies once then hopefully the process will be quicker if you catch Covid again.

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We both got flu jabs last year and will probably do the same this one. Husband used to get it free at his workplace before he retired.

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Absolutely none at all. A different strain of virus too.

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Yes, that is what I know too. I know the flu jab is basically one year behind but it’s still worthwhile. Some people (and not only here) swear by it. I have an acquaintance here that had this vaccine every year since many years and never got ill.

I think you have some misconceptions about this stuff. As we could see with Covid, it doesn’t necessarily work that way.

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I think it’s 6 months behind, in the sense that Northern Hemisphere experts look at what is happening recently in the Southern Hemisphere and vv.

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It’s a bit more complex than and others factors are taken into consideration but that’s part of the decision making process.

My husband got a flu shot once and coincidentally had strong flu a few months after. Since then we are a bit sceptical about flu vaccines and don’t bother.

Maybe he caught a variant from someone who had it from overseas and which the current vaccine at the time offered no protection.

There are many other illnesses with the same symptoms as flu. Maybe it was something else.

Maybe he was just unlucky. Maybe he was actually lucky and without the vaccine, he may have ended up in hospital with the same flu virus.

For me there would be too many variables to reach a conclusion like you did.

Here I post again the effectiveness rates of flu vaccines over the past six seasons, the highest effective rate is 40%. So if you are exposed to a flu virus then at best you have almost a two-thirds chance of being sick.

Here are the effectiveness rates over the past six seasons for which data are available:

  • 2016–2017: 40%
  • 2017–2018: 38%
  • 2018–2019: 29%
  • 2019–2020: 39%
  • 2021-2022: 36%
  • 2022-2023: 44%
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Just to comment on data in Switzerland (from bag dashboard)… Why has 2021 got almost zero cases?

Anyway, I used to get the flu vaccine as, many years back, I had 18 months of chemotherapy. After this, my doctor strongly advised me to take due to my weakened immunity. Probably took for 10 years and didn’t catch flu so :wave:

I think that just shows that the COVID measures such as masks, isolation and WFH really do work to prevent, or at least reduce virus transmission.

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