Influenza 2018-2019 vaccination

" forced preventative medicine..."

I assume this does not refer to vaccinations because we have batted them around already. Other forms of preventive medicine I can think of are voluntary. Such as a Dr. advising one to take statins or pre-diabetes medications. So, please describe what's on your mind here.

 

Measles is du jour in US and New England J Medicine offers a summary and pessimistic prospects:

Decline in measles vaccination is causing a preventable global resurgence of the disease -- ScienceDaily

Virus model illustration made me think of LEGO (TM) toys. They are of rectangular format, but for some things, spherical would be a better basis.

 

Longest. See:

Weekly U.S. Influenza Surveillance Report | CDC

About 1/4 down the page, graph with orange and red bars. It may be unusual that a 'season' starts with one serotype (H1H1) and then has another (H3N2). One would have to look at histories.

Flu vaccine design always involves guesses because this virus is such a great dancer.

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Measles in contrast does not dance. It sings (to stretch the metaphor) with amazing infectivity. Always the same song, and only those not vaccinated can hear it and sing it again.

2019 US measles has sung very well. Having not killed, it only imposes costs by way of medical treatment and quarantines.

 

All righty then, off you go, measles.

To more or less close off 2018/2019 US flu season,
typical vaccine efficacy
17 to 20 million infections
250 to 300 thousand hospitalizations
about 25 thousand fatalities