Life of an Optimistic Sports Fiction Author

It’s never too late to benefit from a flu shot, even into December and January, says Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease specialist at Vanderbilt School of Medicine in Nashville.

“Giving influenza vaccine to people with heart disease, for example, is as important as giving them a statin,” Schaffner says, yet many people living with chronic illness — and even many of their health care providers — don’t realize how vital flu vaccination is to managing their condition.

The vaccine’s ability to prevent flu cases last year hovered around 44 percent overall; it was about 59 percent effective in young children and just 16 percent in adults over 65. But even that low number for older adults elides how much death and disability the vaccine prevented.

“Effectiveness” only refers to the ability of the vaccine to prevent illness, and the vaccine does so much more than that,“ says Dr. LJ Tan, chief strategy officer for the nonprofit Immunization Action Coalition, based in St. Paul, Minn.