Either you’re using the medical definition of mild (didn’t require hospitalization) or you haven’t gotten a true influenza infection in a long time. So many people call strong colds a “flu”, which creates confusion around its severity and contributes to people avoiding the vaccines. But real influenza will have you in bed for a week and set back your fitness for a month (making you tired after even moderate exertion).

Getting my first real flu since childhood is definitely what got me back on the vaccine train. All this talk about mortality, I want to minimize even basic inconvenience to myself!

I got the flu when I was in my late 20s. Up until that point, in common I suspect with most teens and twenty-somethings, I had thought myself pretty much indestructible, so would never have even thought about getting a flu vaccine - I thought that was only for the old and vulnerable. However, since that experience, I try and get one every year - even if you are young and healthy it can be pretty rough, and why risk having to go through that again if you can avoid it?

To the GP's question, about whether catching something gives you better protection than having a vaccine, my (non-expert) expectation is that Covid is like the flu - my having had the flu won't give me protection for all future strains, so I'll keep on needing new vaccines periodically for those new strains.

> about whether catching something gives you better protection than having a vaccine

It's also medically incorrect. When you get a vaccine you are literally getting a live virus injected into you. There's no difference for your immune system. One isn't "fake" and the other "natural". Period.

To your point, viruses mutate and so similar to the flu and flu vaccine, if COVID-19 continues to mutate in ways that are different enough we'll have to get new COVID shots which use modeling to predict the likely virulent strains. People that are aghast about this concept are not really understanding the new reality we're in. The only hope is that if enough people get vaccinated quickly enough, a new strain won't mutate and cause the vaccines to lose some effectiveness. I think that's a wildly naive hope, though and the best path forward is just treating this like a worse flu and moving on with our lives.

> When you get a vaccine you are literally getting a live virus injected into you.

This is false for the mRNA vaccines according to the CDC:

mRNA vaccines do not use the live virus that causes COVID-19 and cannot cause infection with the virus that causes COVID-19 or other viruses.

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/different...

Correct, though the "natural" vs not still applies here. There's no evidence or scientific reason to suggest that catching COVID-19 naturally provides any different immune response than receiving the vaccine for the same strain.

In my previous comment I was unclear about what I was addressing and when, though ultimately the point is that this distinction of contracting a virus "naturally" versus "artificially" is not scientifically based. Applies to COVID-19 mRNA vaccines as well as flu vaccines.

If there's evidence to suggest otherwise though we should get that out there.

> mRNA vaccines do not use the live virus that causes COVID-19

That has caused resistance among friends I know, who say that its not a real vaccine, since vaccines give you a small dose of a live virus to trigger one's immune response. Perhaps the mRNA injections should have used a different name to clear misconceptions.

"We" are people intelligent to recognize that vaccination against diseases like the flu is a good idea even if we're healthy and unlikely to have significant complications. "We" know that the shot will make it less likely for us to get sick, and that we're more likely to have a mild case if we do get it after being vaccinated. "We" also recognize that getting vaccinated helps reduce the number of people who spread a virus that can be deadly to other members of society, particularly the very young, very old, and those with compromised immune systems.

Getting vaccinated not only helps yourself, it helps those around you.

I was in the military for years. Vaccines galore for any and every conceivable illness. I was required to have flu shots. Every single flu shot I've had gave me the flu. Full blown sickness, within a day of receiving the shot. Since leaving the military I've not had a flu shot and I've not had the flu. Obviously it's anecdotal but you'll never convince me to start taking flu shots after such repeated experiences.

That's not how flu shots work. You might have had an immune response that had you feeling down, but flu shots don't give you the flu.

It's semantics whether or not full-blown flu symptoms are "the flu" or not; I get the flu shot, then I get sick.

Except you aren’t going to risk getting very sick (pneumonia) from the vaccinated response. And you aren’t going to give the virus to someone else.

Enjoy your moral superiority, and I'll enjoy not feeling like dog crap for a week after getting the shot.

I find it insane that someone would argue against your personal experience like that.

I've had the feeling all along that once we've started getting people forced into perpetual Covid vaccinations it's gonna move into seasonal influenza vaccines. Judging by this discourse my hunch is not far off.

Why engage in discussions when semantics does not matter?

Technically I think your reaction is from the immune response to the vaccine. Which is unpleasant but not contagious.

Now real flu viruses may have not yet given you symptoms since you stopped vaccinating. But it's possible you're becoming a carrier of the virus that spreads it to more vulnerable people. Some of whom may not be able to get vaccinated.

It's my choice not to take shots that make me sick, and no I won't take them again. It's unfortunate that some people have fragile health, but it's not really my problem. No amount of brow-beating will make it my problem. No, I'm not a calloused individual that doesn't care about others. I don't believe that anyone is required to undergo medical procedures in order to benefit me, and I will not undergo medical procedures for anyone else, especially considering my experience with those procedures (significant illness, every time).

Mind you, you sound 100% like someone who do not care about others.

But your decision to not take flu shots sounds totally reasonable given you apparently get a bad adverse reaction every time.

You therefore belong to that group of people whose health is too weak to get vaccinated, I guess.

I hope you won't catch the flu, and will keep getting vaccinated whenever I get the chance since I'm lucky enough that I've never felt any illness from any vaccine (but got flu once and had to stay in bed, half unconscious, for almost a day).

I don't know what high horse bubble you live in, but in my almost 40 years on this planet I've only met one single person who has ever had a flu shot and he's younger than me. Granted I have to live in another kind of bubble. My currently 70+ year old parents and aunt, as well as my 80+ old mother-in-law, have never had a flu shot (until my aunt this winter).

It definitely has nothing to do with "not caring about others". What a malicious human being you seem to be. The vast majority of people just aren't that worried about the flu. It's a natural part of life for most people. For old people and immunocompromised it's relevant, and for them it's obviously their choice to defend against it - and I've started recommending elders in my community to get flu shots (if they want!), even though it only has around 40% efficacy.

Vaccinating kids or young people? Wow. I was sacked for 2 days both with my first and second jab. Next one I'm just gonna let my immune system ride it out. Arrogant people like you convince me.

"You are not intelligent because you make different personal medical decisions than I do."

Indeed. Every time I read a post like the grandparent I move closer to full-blown antivaxx.

Pedantically, basing your stance purely on being tired of being told what to do _isn’t_ an intelligent strategy. Not saying that’s your entire stance, but emotional contrarianism is not a good reason to update your priors.

It doesn't help when that thing you're being told to do is constantly changing, and in addition doesn't seem to change where it matters. It seeds doubt and uncertainty, which is surely what we're seeing all around us. No one knows what to do with Covid. And those who claim they do for certainty are sure as hell full of shit.

It can move you closer to an environment where you aren’t often told what to do, though.

Well.

The flu isn't always mild, especially as you get older. Depending on the year a couple hundred thousand Americans wind up in the hospital and about 10-20k die. [1] Compared to COVID-19 (hence the "politicization of getting the vaccine) it's not that bad but it's still not great.

Now what is the cost of getting a flu vaccine every year? Well, for most people it's 0. You walk in, get a shot, walk out. Arm is sore for a day or two at most and that's it. Then in getting the flu shot you reduce your own chance of getting the flu and reducing severity if you do get it anyway (which many people do), and you lower the risk for others who might be immunocompromised, susceptible to the flu, etc. Now I understand if you want to make the case that society shouldn't pay for it or that it's not worth it or w/e, but on an individual level there seems to be a ton of upside versus the downside.

So what's the downside of the flu shot? You're inconvenienced. That's about it. Unfortunately it's hard to measure the value of that inconvenience versus the upside, so, as typical human nature goes, you just value your inconvenience and then decide not to get a flu vaccine. Unfortunately it's just human nature. The same human nature manifests in all sorts of "I got mine" kinds of ways, ranging from global warming to opposing healthcare for all (why don't they just get insurance like me?).

If anything I think the dividing line isn't so much political (though it's now being used politically), it's who is willing to make sacrifices for the good of society. In the case of the flu vaccine here what I'm hearing you say is basically "welp, I don't see how it benefits me so I don't care". Is that not the case?

> it seems deeply silly to me to get a yearly shot just to cut down on the chance of mild illness

As someone who now just grabs the flu shot whenever it's available and I happen to be in a convenient spot the 1-3 days I might feel like crap seem like an awfully high price to pay for not getting a shot that takes 5 minutes. At least practically speaking. Idk. I don't like getting sick and the shot doesn't bother me at all.

[1] https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/index.html

> it seems deeply silly to me to get a yearly shot just to cut down on the chance of a mild illness.

Is it silly to get a shot in order to cut down on the chance of someone else having a mild illness turn severe or fatal?

It is exactly that, a divide between people who already get yearly jabs and people who don't.

What is new is that those who get yearly jabs, now wants to mandate the other group to get yearly jabs.

This is what I never want to see happen, we should have as much control as possible over our own body.