Re:Flu Research Once Banned Because It Was Deemed Too Danger...
by deathanatos on Friday March 08, 2019 @08:26PM
(#19343876)
> No medical act is a free lunch, economically of course, but from a health perspective either.
Someone else in the comments mentions that last years vaccine was particularly ineffective, at only about 50%. Google says the vaccine costs ~$40, so since it's only 50% effective, let's double that cost to $80 to account for the odd year where it isn't effective¹. (And that's a bad year, so typically, we can expect better.) So, what's cheaper: spending a week in bed miserable, trying to get over the flu and the lost productivity entailed by that disease, or $80? My time is definitely worth way more than $80 — even at minimum wage it's likely a payoff, if not just that I think most of us would willingly just pay that $80 to avoid the misery. (I mean, I do: I get the shot. It's also covered for me by my healthcare, so it's sort-of $0 to me, personally. I don't get $80 back if I don't get it.)
¹I'm not sure if this is quite the statistically right way to do this, but I think it's close enough that the point holds. My point is that, even conservatively, getting the vaccine pays off.
Someone else in the comments mentions that last years vaccine was particularly ineffective, at only about 50%. Google says the vaccine costs ~$40, so since it's only 50% effective, let's double that cost to $80 to account for the odd year where it isn't effective¹. (And that's a bad year, so typically, we can expect better.) So, what's cheaper: spending a week in bed miserable, trying to get over the flu and the lost productivity entailed by that disease, or $80? My time is definitely worth way more than $80 — even at minimum wage it's likely a payoff, if not just that I think most of us would willingly just pay that $80 to avoid the misery. (I mean, I do: I get the shot. It's also covered for me by my healthcare, so it's sort-of $0 to me, personally. I don't get $80 back if I don't get it.)
¹I'm not sure if this is quite the statistically right way to do this, but I think it's close enough that the point holds. My point is that, even conservatively, getting the vaccine pays off.