Influenza, or the flu as its more commonly referred to, is one of the most common viral diseases known to humanity. Very rarely is there someone who hasn’t had it at some point in their life. The flu season always tends to be widespread, infecting as many as 700,000 people a year. Statistics show that of these 700,000 cases of the flu, 140,000 of them lead to infections, and 12,000-60,000 even end in death. People who are very young, elderly, or those who are of weak constitution tend to me more susceptible to the flu. But this year’s season was much worse.

All specifics aside, standard vaccinations only have a 10% success rate in resisting the strain as it mutates far too quickly. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases accurately predicted that the vaccines would do little here in the US. Most other species of the virus aren’t entirely stopped by our vaccines, but they still have about 50-70% effectiveness, so it isn’t as bad.

The lack of effectiveness in our flu vaccines has a few reasons for not being rapidly remedied. First of all, the influenza virus itself mutates constantly, creating dozens of strains that are hard to keep track of in the creation of vaccines. Of course, creating an individual vaccine for every strain could be done, but it would remain effective for only a short time. Therefore, it’s more cost-effective and efficient in the long run to create single vaccines with a broad range of effectiveness, even if only a few strains are completely protected against.

Furthermore, the constantly decreasing government subsidies from Congress has led to numerous job-layoffs that detrimentally decrease the number of people able to work on research to create more effective vaccines.

Regardless, having some defense is better than none, so taking the available vaccines is very much recommended, especially in seasons of such a high infection rate.

This season, it seems especially here at Gig Harbor High School that the flu is practically inevitable. But if there is one thing you should take away from this information, it would be to wash your hands, the best way to prevent getting contagious illness. Stay healthy, Tides!