Flu Season is Here: Good Reasons to Get the Shot

It’s flu season again, which always raises questions about whether to get the shot, or how effective it really might be.

The Hamilton county health department Monday provided the answers, and added a warning: get inoculated– or you’ll later wish you had.

As the season changes, you get the sniffles and get ready for the worst. But how do you know if its the dreaded flu–or just a cold.

We talked with the Hamilton county health department to get some tips on what to expect.

SHARON GOFORTH, SPECIAL PROJECTS, HAM. CO. HEALTH DEPART. “With the flu, you’re probably going to go to sleep and feel ok, but you’re going to wake up in the middle of the night feeling horrible. You’re going to have a high fever ..its going to come on very quickly ..you’re going to have major body aches.”

Sharon Goforth says a cold will come on slowly, and normally won’t include the high fever. With flu, you’ll know pretty quick!

SHARON GOFORTH ” A lot of people really don’t think it makes them that sick, but it really does and if you ask anybody who’s ever had it they’ll be happy to tell how sick they were.”

And by the way, 8 people died in Hamilton county from the flu last year. It’s especially dangerous for older people, and those with chronic diseases. They could develop pneumonia.

The CDC admits and that last year, the effectiveness of the flu shot was less than 40%, and the year before that, it was only 14% effective.

This year, they are not taking many chances.

SHARON GOFORTH “Potentially, depending ion what kind of vaccine you get we have what we call a trivalent vaccine which is 2 of the A strains of flu and one B. And then the quadrivalent has 2 A’s and 2 B’s.”

The CDC is also recommending that health agencies stop using the Flue Mist. It just wasn’t that effective.

SHARON GOFORTH “Yes, most of the kids are going to get shots and they’re probably not going to be happy about that.”

And, keep in mind that flu vaccines are made from dead viruses, there’s no way they can give you the flu, regardless of what you may have heard.