Despite
healthcare professionals urging parents to immunize their kids for flu during
the Covid-19 pandemic, some families are more reluctant than ever to do so.
According to the C.S. Mott Children's Hospital National Poll on Children'sHealth at Michigan Medicine, one in three families do not plan to vaccinate their
kids this year.
This
worries doctors. They fret about simultaneous peaks of flu and Covid-19 overwhelming
the already stressed healthcare system. Testing capacity would be compromised,
as would health pros’ ability to catch and treat both respiratory illnesses
effectively.
Sarah
Clark, co-director of the poll, says, “The important thing this year is to make
sure that kids get a flu vaccine even when the family hasn't already
established a pattern or a habit of making sure kids get one every year.”
The
survey polled 2000 parents of at least one child age 2-18. One third either
didn’t believe in a flu shot’s efficacy, or cited concerns about side effects. They
also expressed apprehension about bringing their children to a healthcare
practitioner’s office. These parents are not sold on the overwhelming majority
of doctors’ offices developing extensive protocols to keep visitors – both
children and adults – safe.
Clearly,
the health crisis of Covid-19 has created chronic fear in households the likes
of which our society has not seen since the 1955 polio epidemic or the Spanish
Flu of 1918. Unlike in those eras, however, parents now have unprecedented
access to information, and, crucially, misinformation.
The
Internet is the double-edged sword in the middle of it all. While it is a great
connector, it has also become dramatically divisive and anxiety inducing. Meanwhile,
the CDC and the WHO occasionally revise Covid-19 safety guidelines. This was especially
true in the early days of the pandemic. It’s therefore become harder for some to
trust organizations telling them what they should do to be safe, whether it’s regarding
Covid-19 or influenza. Internet-based criticisms lobbied at the medical
community in general are dizzying, in part because websites and social media
provide platforms for emphatic, unregulated dissent, largely from people with
no medical training, but significant persuasive powers.
Nevertheless,
healthcare professionals are adamant: “There is a lot of misinformation about
the flu vaccine," Clark asserts. “But it is the best defense for children
against serious health consequences of influenza and the risk of spreading it
to others.”
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