In our household, the past two previous weeks involved getting our immunization shots. It was a simple process that involved making an appointment at a pharmacy or with the Northwestern Health Unit. For me, I received my Covid shot and the flu shot; one in each arm. The Covid shot left my left shoulder a little sore.
The following Monday, I attended a clinic at the Northwestern Health Unit and received a respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) shot, which people 75 years and older are now encouraged to receive. It didn’t take a lot of persuading for me to realize that with my history of lung issues, I was a natural candidate.
My wife and I have received shots for shingles and pneumonia over the last decade – we look at our annual shots as an ounce of prevention.
Canada had been measles-free for 27 years, but all of that changed on Monday when the Pan American Health Organization, a regional arm of the World Health Organization, advised that our nation had lost its measles-free status. The disease returned to Canada just over a year ago and has spread across the country. The highest number of measles cases occurred in Alberta, but every province has seen cases. Two persons have died from measles this past year, both babies exposed to the measles virus in the womb.
Over 5,100 cases have been reported in Canada. The return of measles has been attributed to lower levels of immunization in children. In 2021, 79 per cent of year olds had received the vaccine for measles. That was down from 83 per cent in 2019. It takes 95 per cent vaccine rates to achieve herd immunity.
One of the benefits of immunization is that one protects the people around them. If a high enough proportion of the public is immunized, we develop herd immunity. That means it is more difficult for someone with the disease to transmit it to another person. In Ontario, students must have immunization shots to attend school. It protects all the students, the teachers and support staff.
It has been estimated that 150 million lives have been saved with vaccines. One does not have to remember our fear of a pandemic when only five years ago, Covid was killing hundreds across North America every week until vaccines were developed to strengthen our immune systems against the disease.
Growing up, I remember standing in line in the hallway of Robert Moore School as a six-year-old, waiting for a nurse to reach me and inject a polio vaccine into my arm. There had already been students who had been stricken with polio and having the vaccine available to prevent the disease removed a big worry from parent’s minds. Today, polio is almost totally eradicated from the world.
Arriving in the mail this week was a notice from the Northwestern Health Unit reminding everyone to make an appointment for their annual Covid and flu shot. Is it too much to ask district residents to get their shots?
