“Instead of instructing individuals to receive all vaccines, LDH staff must communicate data on the reduced risk of illness, hospitalization and death associated with a vaccine and individuals to discuss considerations for vaccination with their care provider,” wrote he.
“Jerk in half”
Susan Hassig, an epidemiologist and professor Emerita of infectious diseases at the School of Public Health of Tulane University, told The Times-Picayune that this is problematic advice. Many people have no first -line care providers. “They go to an urgent care or a clinic,” said Hassig. “In Louisiana they go to first aid.”
The Memo lands in the midst of widespread fear that the appointment of Kennedy will lead to further erosion of America's trust in vaccination and vaccination rates. The routine vaccination in children with toddlers throughout the country have already gone in the reach of 92 percent, hopelessly under the threshold of 95 percent to prevent further spread of the disease. Exemptions from school vaccination requirements are at a record high.
Furthermore, the country is also in the middle of the worst flu season in 15 years. The percentage of visiting the doctor for flu-like diseases (a standard statistics for the flu season) reached 7.8 percent this week, a high not seen since the 2009–2010 season in the middle of the rise of the H1N1 pig flu. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that this season there have been at least 29 million diseases, 370,000 hospital admissions and 16,000 deaths due to the flu. This week 11 children died of flu and the pediatric death clumps 2024-2025 to 68 brought.
One of the recent dead was a healthy 9-year-old girl in North Carolina, who died of flu complications on January 29. “I literally feel that my heart is torn in two,” her mother told Wral News.
Seasonal flu shots significantly reduce the risk of death, especially in children.
