I got my flu shot this morning! There was some “flu-proof club” fistbumping in the office earlier, but our zeal for secret handshakes diminished a bit as some of our arms got sore. 
I didn’t get a cool band-aid, probably because I was off like a “shot” (haha!) as soon as the business end of my nurse visit was over. I’m not a big fan of needles and didn’t want to risk getting all woozy in front of my co-workers.
I’ve read articles about how having only a part of the population immunized protects the whole – a really fascinating concept. “Population immunity” really only requires a small percentage of the population to have immunity in order to protect the rest – it’s really neat.
2 responses so far ↓
1 Sara J. // Nov 12, 2008 at 9:03 pm
Well, that’s the theory… thing is, it’s mostly just a theory, though it seems logical. Thing is, no one knows the amount that needs to be immunized for a protective population effect, I don’t think!
Anyhow, cool that you got the shot, not the flu (as I keep getting told). Just don’t, you know, seizure, contract autism, turn into a vegetable, and die in some secret government tracking programme
2 Maddy // Nov 13, 2008 at 7:43 pm
Back in ye olde days of my undergrad classes in microbiology – the effect was referred to as “herd immunity”, and we were told that (generally speaking) around 80% of the population that had to be immunized to protect unimmunized individuals in the population. That being said, it obviously varies with the effectiveness of the vaccine.
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