Subtle Vengeance

I told you people the flu wasn’t serious. I told you it was retarded to stand in a throng in front of a clinic for a flu shot. Here’s some nice little evidence in a comment under a news article, based on stats quoted in the article:

colonel2sheds wrote:”Hey everybody! Let’s play MATH:”

The risk of getting a serious adverse reaction from the H1N1 shot was 6.7 times greater than dying from H1N1.

1. Tozetre says:

   February 23, 2010 at 21:54

   Only because H1N1 wasn’t an epidemic; if it had been, the numbers would be reversed, and greater. It’s about herd immunity and likelihoods. This is going to convince people they don’t need to get their next flu shot, or the next, and then some mouth-breather who figures “my immune system is strong enough” is going to catch 3 strains at once, breed a superflu, and kill my fat, athsmatic ass.

   The risk WAS, yes; but the risk COULD HAVE BEEN that 15% of the population died. We didn’t know that then, and we don’t know it about the next one.
2. Mike Doyle says:

   February 24, 2010 at 00:21

   What he said, more or less. That is, you can’t know ahead of time if it’s just going to be an ordinary flu bug, or if it’s going to be an Andromeda-level uberbug. If you wait to be sure, it’ll be too late to do prophylaxis.

   For the record, I did not get my shot, but only because they were limiting vaccinations to perceived high-risk groups until well after it peaked, and I wasn’t high-risk. Just as glad it didn’t turn out to be an uberbug – if I’d gotten infected and brought it home, Mrs. D would have had some serious problems (and she couldn’t get vaccinated in the first place, b/c her allergies make most vaccines non-starters – she’s pretty much dependent upon herd immunity…)

   I will be interested to see if this bug mutates in time for next year, though…