Please Note: Recommendations around the coronavirus outbreak are evolving everyday. Information may not be up-to-date.

What if we told you there was something you could do to help everyone with coronavirus? Would you step up and help society?

We hope the answer is yes. Especially because you don’t know if you or a family member is going to need the help. There’s no way to predict who will develop a bad case of the coronavirus. 

Here’s some perspective.

The coronavirus is so new that there is no treatment(TREET-MINT) — Techniques to help eliminate or control a disease or vaccination. Everyone is trying to prevent the spread of the disease, but so many elements are proving that difficult. On the other hand, influenza (flu)(IN-FLEW-EN-ZAH) — A viral infection that causes a fever and severe aching has been around for decades, and we have a successful vaccine(VAX-ZEEN) — A treatment used to teach your immune system how to recognize certain foreign invaders and prevent disease. You can actually take steps to prevent the flu. 

As a society, we all need to do our part for the victims of the coronavirus. Getting your flu vaccine is one of the easiest ways to help save our medical resources for the coronavirus victims.

Yes, you can still get the flu if you have received the vaccine, but it prevents a large percentage of people from ever getting it. Additionally, there are more benefits to the vaccine beyond just preventing the flu. For example, if you do end up getting the flu after the vaccination, you are far less likely to have to see a doctor or go to the hospital because the symptoms are milder and don’t last as long.

The flu vaccine prevents tens of thousands of hospitalizations each year. Imagine how many more could be avoided if everyone got their flu shot.

Furthermore, when you get the flu vaccine, you are protected from the flu and also less likely to pass along the flu to someone else. (Sometimes this is referred to as herd immunity). If you are a healthy person with a strong immune system(EM-MUNE SIS-TEM) — A network of proteins and cells that work together to stop invaders from taking over the body and causing many problems (without the vaccine), you might not get sick or experience significant symptoms of the flu, but you can still pass it on to someone else. That someone else might not have as good of an immune system as you, and they could get very sick from it.

Take it a step further. 

If you don’t develop a severe case of the flu and you don’t pass it along, then you (and those you could have infected) won’t end up in the hospital. That means that our healthcare resources can be dedicated to patients with the coronavirus. There is one more bed open to those who couldn’t have prevented getting sick. As more and more cases of the coronavirus are reported and require hospitalization, the more our medical resources will be strained.

So, by getting your flu shot, you are preventing the spread of the flu and could be saving someone else’s life. That’s a huge benefit!

Call your primary care doctor or local pharmacy to see if they still have vaccines available and will administer it. Start this year, and get it again this fall.