What sort of things are venturing out into that air-filled room? A quiet suspicion.
It’s flu season again, with all its flu-and-games. And with the offer to get vaccinated against the flu-ish cough. The needle in the haystack has been found. In Newmarket, this watertight jab of a procedure gets administered right between the cough syrup and the painkillers. Sleeve up, needle in. Done. In Basel, you need an appointment first before the needle can do its duty.
For a long time I had a rather conflicted relationship with the needle. After all, this is a direct jab into my life, that is, into my body. We men, and hippies especially, aren’t entirely unaffected by pointy things boring into skin. It takes courage, a pinch of ignorance, and a poker face for the bystanders.
“In Flu Enza we trust” could be the going tone in Canadian English. After all, the vaccine is meant to help against a severe course of illness. It doesn’t always prevent infection. But anyone who, two weeks after the jab, shows up around babies, the elderly, or the chronically ill protects people who can’t get vaccinated themselves. Well, look at that.
The same vaccine every year? Oh no. It gets updated every year, adapted to the flu strains currently circulating. Looking back at winters with flu vaccination shows how much relief it brings to the healthcare system when fewer flu sufferers are out and about. What’s more, these vaccine-y substances carry a few decades of experience in their backpack and rarely show serious side effects.
Where there’s a jab, there are arguments. Opinions on the flu vaccine are mixed, and the counterarguments come promptly. Its effectiveness is often doubted, because it varies from year to year. Sometimes it protects clearly, in other seasons less so. The protection fades over time. Yes, true — but the shot isn’t a standing subscription, it’s a seasonal pass.
Oh yes, sometimes the arm aches for days after the needle has done its duty. Sometimes fever and a tired constitution accompany the procedure. Full protection takes about two weeks to arrive. Presumably the vaccine has to register with the immune system and wait for approval. Allergic reactions happen too, but extremely rarely. A hundred percent is a rare situation, even with vaccination. And of course it doesn’t automatically protect against a cold or other viruses, flu being flu. Doubts crop up especially in the vaccinated man, the moment a sniffle checks in.
After the long years of the pandemic, with its sometimes tiresome side effects like vaccination and mask mandates, some people have grown wary of the needle. Understandable. The phenomenon is called fatigue with a shot of scepticism.
A small all-clear for the suspicious: there’s no obligation to get the flu vaccine. The free and the willing — the word for that is voluntariness — that’s the nice part about it.
I like the term “In Flu Enza,” because everything in it is in flux. And right in the middle sits the English word “flu” itself.
Right then, I’m off to the haystack for a bit.
