The worst that could happen?

I got my flu shot yesterday. I’ve been doing that every year (with one exception) for decades, because every year for almost a century, humankind has come up against a range of viruses that we still don’t quite know how to deal with.

Yes—since the global influenza pandemic of 1918-1919, when more people were killed by the flu than by four years of total war, our scientists have been struggling to determine the best way to fight the constantly-mutating strains. So being vaccinated against them is still your best bet for treatment.

But it just does not cease to cause me amazement the extent to which people—even clearly intelligent and apparently well-educated ones—are ignorant of this killer, which annually takes out hundreds of thousands of us. Young, old, healthy, not—the flu is like Honey Badger—it don’t give a shit.

A few weeks ago I was out on the streets of Cupertino with a walking meetup. I had a Stanford Medical Center surgical nurse on my left and a young corporate lawyer-between-gigs on my right. I mentioned that I was a little behind-time in getting the vaccination this year. The lawyer boasted that he’s never had one because, “what’s the worst that could happen?...”

As he was drawing breath to describe cold symptoms, I interjected, “Death. Death is the worst thing that could happen.” And at the same moment the nurse said flatly, “You could die.”

You could tell he wasn’t convinced, so I don’t expect that the next time I see him he’ll have bothered with it. Aside from being arrogant and having a law degree, he seems nice enough, so I hope he doesn’t catch the flu. Or that, if he does, his COBRA coverage will pay for his hospitalization.

As for me, I’ll take the usual precautions—lots of hand-washing and the like. But I feel a lot better for having had the shot, and I strongly urge you to do likewise.