That’s according to a review of New York state health data by Excellus BlueCross BlueShield.
The low vaccination rate occurs “each year, despite evidence of the vaccine’s flu-prevention effectiveness and its ability to reduce flu severity,” the health insurer said in a news release.
The flu vaccine is widely available at doctor’s offices, area pharmacies, various clinics and other locations, Excellus said.
Rochester–based Excellus, which has an office in DeWitt, is Central New York’s largest health insurer.
“We can stomp out the flu, or limit its opportunity to spread, if everyone gets the flu vaccine,” Dr. Richard Lockwood, VP and chief medical officer at Excellus, said in the news release.
He warns that if this flu season is anything like last year’s, “it could be a bad one.”
The Atlanta, Georgia–based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) classified the 2017-2018 flu season as “high severity” overall and, for the first time since the 2003-2004 flu season, “high severity” among each age group.
“With few exceptions,” the CDC recommends that everyone ages six months and older gets the flu vaccine annually. It’s “never too early or too late” in the flu season to get the vaccine, the CDC encourages doing so “by the end of October.”
Children ages 6 months through 8 years who require two doses of the flu vaccine should receive their first dose as soon as possible to allow the second dose (which must be administered four weeks or more later) to be received by the end of October.
The U.S. annually has 2.5 million flu cases that result in “hundreds of thousands of hospitalizations and tens of thousands of deaths,” Excellus said.
The health insurer went on to explain that one person with the flu can infect other people one day before any symptoms develop, and up to about seven days after he/she becomes sick. Statistically, every 100 people with the flu will infect 127 other people. The virus can spread to others up to about 6 feet away, mainly by microscopic droplets expelled into the air when people cough, sneeze, or even talk.
“Your decision to skip the flu vaccine this year could result in you being a person who spreads the virus,” Lockwood contends. “For young children, the elderly, and people with compromised immune systems, the flu virus can be deadly.”
Other than an aversion to needles, the top reasons people give for skipping the flu vaccine are that they think it will give them the flu; they don’t believe it works; they don’t think they need it every year; or they feel it is too early or too late in the flu season for the vaccine to be effective.
“None of these reasons is supported in the medical literature,” Lockwood noted.
Many health-insurance policies cover the cost of the flu vaccine in full, Excellus added.
Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com