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In good years, the flu kills tens of thousands of Americans and makes many more sick. Yet even in the time of Covid, the other respiratory lethal flu caused by a virus is underestimated. Almost half of American adults don’t bother to get vaccinated against it. Despite the ongoing Covid experience, researchers and historians do not expect Americans’ attitudes towards the flu to change much.
Influenza researcher and senior adviser to the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Dr. “Statistics about the flu have been released to the public,” said David Morens. “And they just don’t care.”
Some researchers and historians are examining flu-related attitudes for clues on how Americans will cope with Covid in the years to come. Will Covid become a serious contagious disease that, like the flu, continues to cause large numbers of deaths each year, but is ignored by the public?
Historians and public health experts say the public’s attitudes towards the flu are illustrative and exemplify paradoxical thinking about risks and illnesses.
A public health researcher at the University of Michigan, Dr. “I think ‘flu’ to the public means mild illness,” said Arnold Monto. But during the bad flu years, hospitals are filling up, elective surgeries are being delayed. “People forget that,” he said.
In 1918, a new strain of flu caused a pandemic with a horrific death rate. Still, once this epidemic ended, complacency resumed, said Nancy Bristow, head of the history department at the University of Puget Sound. People wanted to leave that terrible period behind.
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