You are Essential – This Season a Flu Vaccine is More Important than Ever!
A flu vaccine this season can help reduce the burden on our healthcare systems responding to the COVID-19 pandemic and save medical resources for the care of COVID-19 patients.
Protect yourself, your family, and your community from the flu. September and October are good times to get a flu vaccine.
Flu vaccination has been shown in several studies to reduce the severity of illness in people who get vaccinated but still get sick.
A 2017 study showed that flu vaccination reduced deaths, intensive care unit (ICU) admissions, ICU length of stay, and overall duration of hospitalization among hospitalized flu patients.
A 2018 study showed that among adults hospitalized with flu, vaccinated patients were 59% less likely to be admitted to the ICU than those who had not been vaccinated. Among adults in the ICU with flu, vaccinated patients on average spent 4 fewer days in the hospital than those who were not vaccinated.
Getting vaccinated yourself may also protect people around you.
This includes those who are more vulnerable to serious flu illness:
- babies
- young children
- older people
- those with certain chronic health conditions.
Although available, only about half of Americans get an annual flu vaccine, and flu continues to cause millions of illnesses, hundreds of thousands of hospitalizations, and tens of thousands of deaths. Many more people could be protected from flu if more people got vaccinated.*References for the studies listed above can be found at Publications on Influenza Vaccine Benefits. Also, see the A Strong Defense Against Flu: Get Vaccinated! fact sheet.
Find out where you can find your flu vaccine using this vaccine finder.
The more people vaccinated; the more people protected. Do your part. Get a flu vaccine this fall.
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