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As a seasoned journalist, I don’t exactly have a reputation around the Michigan Capitol for being warm and fuzzy. But I do have a confession: I love Christmastime.
No, I don’t don ugly reindeer sweaters or cajole my brood into taking photos in matching candy cane jammies. But holiday music does start wafting through our home before we’ve boxed up Thanksgiving leftovers, which our adult children find endlessly corny.
Susan J. Demas
It’s the one time of year that politics almost always slows down, so we can stay up late watching movies or maybe drag the kids on a chilly hike. After COVID crashed a couple Christmases, I find myself getting even more sentimental this time of year and grateful to be able to spend the holidays with the people I love most.
But even during this welcome return to festive year-end parties and panicked, last-minute shopping, you’ll inevitably find yourself next to someone in the throes of a coughing fit.
It’s Michigan. It’s winter. We’re used to it.
But whether it’s a cold, the flu or yes, COVID, it’s definitely not the sort of thing you want to bring back to your loved ones, especially babies, seniors and immunocompromised people who face serious health risks.
Look, I know it’s a bummer to still think about COVID, especially during one of the most wonderful times of the year. But that’s the thing about living in a society. We all have a moral responsibility to think of others, especially the most vulnerable among us. So many of us give back this time of year, whether it’s volunteering at homeless shelters, donating to charities or giving toys to kids in need. We can take some steps to make sure that we’re not spreading deadly viruses, too.
Fortunately, we have incredible tools to blunt the worst of several respiratory diseases. If everyone got their annual flu shot and the new COVID booster that came out in September, we’d have a lot less to worry about this winter.
Right now, we’re seeing elevated activity nationally for both flu and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), with the latter hitting young children particularly hard, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports.
While the RSV vaccine is recommended for those 60 and up, only 17% report that they’ve gotten it. The news is more encouraging for the flu shot, with about 42% of adults and 43% of kids getting vaccinated this season, but that’s still far short of reaching herd immunity.
There are plenty of good reasons to do so.
RSV kills between 6,000 to 10,000 Americans over 65 every year and the flu has killed between 4,900 and 52,000 between 2010 and 2022, per the CDC. (Interestingly, flu levels were minimal in the 2020-21 season — even while COVID spiked again before vaccines were widely available — as masking was still widely practiced).
And then there’s COVID, which has killed 1.6 million people in the U.S. — almost 44,000 of them in Michigan — and hospitalized 6.6 million since 2020. The good news is that the fatality rate has dramatically slowed since we mournfully passed the 1 million mark in May 2022.
About 70% of people got their initial COVID vaccine (the shots that rolled out to the general public in early 2021), which has helped stop the spread and severity of the virus. Since then, several booster shots have been available to help protect against COVID variants, but rates keep declining.
Only 18% of adults and just 8% of kids have received the latest COVID booster.
So if you’ve been avoiding getting your booster because you’re exhausted after almost four years of COVID (and I know I am), that’s a completely human response. But it literally only takes a couple minutes and you can get your flu shot at the same time for good measure.
– Susan J. Demas
So it’s not surprising that the CDC says COVID test positivity, emergency department visits and hospitalizations remain elevated across the country, particularly in the Midwest. Infants and seniors make up most of the ER visits, but there’s also been a spike for young children. And new variants (HV.1 and JN.1) have stubbornly emerged since the last booster was developed.
With a booming economy spurring more holiday travel, the safe bet is that COVID rates will climb higher in the coming weeks.
If you haven’t gotten your latest COVID booster, flu or RSV shots, don’t feel guilty for putting it off. It’s not too late. And you can probably get them today, since long waits haven’t been a thing since 2021. (You can check here for availability in your area).
Experts say there are many reasons why there are so few takers for the new booster — poor messaging from the government, high costs and a growing anti-vax movement that’s gained a foothold in the Republican Party.
Vaccines are nothing short of modern miracles, so the fact that partisanship has contributed to needless suffering and deaths is an inconvertible tragedy.
And so, Democrats and college graduates have disproportionately higher vaccination rates than others (seniors also do, which makes far more sense, as they’re much more likely to get seriously ill).
But alas, it’s “become part of somebody’s identity that they’re not somebody who gets COVID shots in particular,” Dr. Céline Gounder, a senior fellow at KFF and editor-at-large for Public Health at KFF Health News, told Vox. “That may spill over to vaccines, but it starts with COVID.”
With such dismal overall booster shot rates, however, there’s more going on than political polarization. Pandemic fatigue is real.
At this point, more than three-quarters of Americans have had COVID and most people aren’t worried about getting the virus. That’s the paradox of having a highly effective medical response. (In addition to vaccines, we now have antivirals like Paxlovid that have been effective at keeping many patients out of the hospital if they do contract COVID).
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Masking up is rare, even in crowded venues like concerts, parties and airports, even though well-fitting N95s and K95s are great tools to keep us safe.
It’s not really a mystery why. Sure, they’re not the most comfortable or fashionable accessory. But more than that, masks are a visceral reminder of COVID, as few of us ever wore them before. (Don’t fret. Besides right-wing fearmongering for clicks, mask mandates are definitely not coming back, as nearly everyone is over that).
Let’s be honest. No one wants to spend too much time thinking about the horrors of the pandemic, marked by morbid milestones like New York having makeshift morgues in spring 2020 and 4,000 Americans dying of the virus in a single day in January 2021.
We want to believe everything is normal, even if COVID can still send too many of our grandparents to the ER.
So if you’ve been avoiding getting your booster because you’re exhausted after almost four years of COVID (and I know I am), that’s a completely human response. But it literally only takes a couple minutes and you can get your flu shot at the same time for good measure. It’s one less thing to worry about during what should be a joyous holiday season.
That simple act still has the ability to save someone’s life — maybe even your own.
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The post Susan J. Demas: It’s the season for giving back. Start by getting your flu and COVID shots. appeared first on Michigan Advance.