The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services is urging people who can get this season’s flu shot to do so.

So far, the agency says about 20% of those eligible to receive the vaccine have been immunized.

New strain appears in the UK

Dr. Natasha Bagdasarian is the state’s chief medical executive. She says a new variant of H3N2 influenza is causing severe cases of flu in England.

“What’s happening in Europe and England is sometimes a harbinger of what’s to come in places like Michigan,” she says. “And what we’ve been seeing [there] is an early flu season and a more severe flu season.”

Early studies have shown that this season’s flu vaccine offers some protection against the new variant.

“In England, they’ve seen that in folks under 18, the vaccine is about 75% protective in terms of keeping them out of the emergency department and the hospital,” Bagdasarian says. “It’s about 40% effective in those over 18.”

While the vaccine does not prevent all cases, Bagdasarian says it does reduce one’s chances of getting really sick.

“What we’re trying to do here is not stop all cases of the flu, but we want to keep people out of the hospital, the ICU, and stop them from dying,” she says.

Vaccinations have been declining since COVID

As for the low vaccination rate this season, Bagdasarian says it’s a trend. Fewer people have been getting annual flu shots since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. She worries that an outbreak of severe flu might overwhelm Michigan’s hospitals.

“When our health systems are full of people with influenza, that means there’s less care to go around,” she says. “None of us want to see a health system that’s overwhelmed with flu cases.”

Bagdasarian says fewer children are receiving routine vaccinations for other diseases such as measles and polio. She fears that recent developments at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention could make that worse.

Skeptics turn health policy on its head

For example, the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) recently recommended that children should only receive the hepatitis B vaccine if their mothers have tested positive or their status is unknown. Decades of research have shown that immunizing newborns against the virus is safe and has drastically reduced childhood cases of hepatitis B and other liver disease.

Bagdasarian attended the ACIP meeting virtually. She questions the qualifications of many who spoke.

“There were not enough scientists,” she says. “There were not enough health professionals, pediatricians, physicians.”

Instead, Bagdasarian notes that some of the presenters had non-medical backgrounds and don’t understand health care. She says that jeopardizes America’s health policies.

“The recommendations they voted on are liable to cause increased confusion and hesitancy and maybe put obstacles in people’s place when they’re trying to get vaccines,” she says.

Bagdasarian’s specialty is infectious disease. She says she’s treated patients with end stage liver disease, measles, and other preventable illnesses. She does not want the U.S. to go back to the time when these things were common.

“Many of these vaccines are things that we took when we were kids,” she says. “To deprive our own children of these life-saving benefits is sad.”