The best flu vaccine is the flu.
Keep your immune system strong with regular exercise, fresh air and good nutrition.
When a particularly virulent strain comes along, you’ll likely have had something close to it over your lifetime and be as ready as anybody.
Vaccines notwithstanding.
The Spanish flu killed so many people because they had a strong immune system. That’s precisely what a cytokine storm is, an immune overreaction.
Two flaws in your reasoning. It is the “strong immune system” that killed many of the otherwise healthy victims of the Spanish flu. Google “cytokine storm”.
When a “particularly virulent strain” comes along there typically isn’t ANY acquired immunity in the population. This is why the new strain is so virulent. The DNA and antigens in the new strain are truly novel and might show evidence of development in another species’ gene pool (birds or swine).
“vaccination rates among high-risk groups have fallen in the years since the 2009-2010 pandemic.”
Maintaining your immune system with good habits is important, but avoiding important vaccinations is really stupid. We older people need to get our pneumonia, shingles, and tetanus vaccines, and children need theirs. The problem is that there are now several new ones and often given all at once. One should never go for the vaccines when a child is already run down, and though it is more time consuming to go more often, I would never let my child have more than 3 vaccinations on any one visit.
Fresh air is something modern man doesn’t get enough of. Schools don’t open their windows so every student breathes the same germy air. Same as in office buildings. A coworker or classmate gets sick and everyone breathing that stale circulated air get sick and then brings it home to the rest of the family.
Just wait until the Christmas break is over and kids who are just back from visiting grandma south of the border bring back untold viruses. FRiends, get your immune system boosted and your errands run before Monday, Jan. 7, when many schools are back in session. My goal is the Friday before.