In the article "CDC: New England tops in swine flu vaccinations" written by Mike Stobbe, an AP medical writer, on April 1 2010, the outline of swine flu reception is given. The article which appeared in Rhode Island Newspapers goes into the statistics of what percentage of people per US state have been vaccinated for the swine flu. The North East has the highest percentages followed in last place by Southeast and Central areas of the country. He goes into detail about what may be causing the different percentages across the country. He suggests that since the swine flu hit the south earlier they already needed the vaccine when it wasn't available and many now have no desire to get it since it seems to have already "passed though." By contrast the H1N1 flu hit the North East just as the vaccinations were becoming available, which could have caused their high reception rate. The link is below.
http://www.boston.com/news/local/rhode_island/articles/2010/04/01/cdc_new_england_tops_in_swine_flu_vaccinations/
I found this article to be very interesting especially as people are less and less interested in getting vaccinated in our own school. I guess it really is all about supply and demand. Now that people arn't seeing "swine flu" everywhere they don't see a need to be vaccinated, even as a precaution. I think the timing of the epidemic in particular areas of the country coupled with the idea of supply and demand is what caused the big differences in percentages. Another detail that the article goes into I find interesting. Depending on what role the local government took in encouraging vaccinations also played a big part on the percentages of people who decided to take the precaution. It makes sense that it would be more widely publicized in the North Eastern states since, by the time it had reached us, we had time to see the damaging effects it can have on other people within our country. I still have not been vaccinated and I think that many people who haven't probably share the belief that the epidemic has passed for the year and if we didn't get it by now, we never will. This attitude is similar to that which is detremental for polio carriers. Even if some people decline to get vaccinated they run the risk of infecting other people. So if the whole country does not get vaccinated there is a chance that the disease could continue to spread rapidy. Unlike polio, however, the signs of infection are almost always visable.
This is a very interesting entry. I remember being surprised at the large percentage of people who did not want to get an H1N1 vaccination. When people first began having concerns, while the disease was spreading rapidly in Mexico, I remember everyone running out to buy masks and gloves to protect themselves, before it was known that masks would not protect against infection. It was remarkable how quickly the level of panic dropped once cases were seen in the US and people realized that it would not end up being as widespread or deadly as predicted. I agree with what you said that people didn't consider that it might be their societal responsibility to get vaccinated in order to avoid spreading it to other people.
ReplyDeleteI find it stange that H1N1 was a huge castastrophe in the fall and winter of 2009, but many people seem to already have forgotten about it. I believe that this is mostly due to the shift in the news media. When swine flu first posed a threat, the news media was all over it, proclaiming that it would certainly be the next global pandemic and that it would kill millions of people. This threat certainly brought about fear among Americans, causing many people to be vaccinated as soon as possible. However, we hardly ever hear anything about swine flu on the news recently, as it certainly has not been as severe as everyone had anticipated.
ReplyDeleteWhile it certainly added to the number of people vaccinated against swine flu, I think the news media could have also been to blame for people not getting vaccinated. For instatnce, the video of the young woman who could only walk backwards after getting vaccinated undoubtedly made people think twice about getting vaccinated themselves. While the new clip also promised that this was a very small risk to the millions of people who did get vaccinated, it surely scared some people out of getting vaccinated.
I think it would make sense that the H1N1 flu vaccine would be the highest in the Northeast. The swine flu caused quite a scare once it went from texas all the way up to new york and so on. I think the reason why the Northeast has the highest amount of vaccinated people is simply because of the natural climate. Flu season tends to peak when it is cold, and down south, it rarely gets cold like the Northeast. There might be a false sense of security in the South that the virus wouldnt spread as fast as it would in the North.
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