Hi Vasco, I didn’t see you account for the cost of serious illness from the flu (hospitalization, death). Young people may not be exempt as I believe some flus are more deadly for the young (e.g. Spanish flu). And the young have more life expectancy to lose. Given the large potential costs of serious illness, even if the probability is small could it be enough to flip your conclusion?
Hi Wayne. You are right I did not account for the possibility of serious illness.
I have neglected the cost from serious illness, which I expect to be minor for me. However, I believe accounting for it may well make vaccination worth it for people who are, for example, 65 or older.
Here is an estimation of the harm from serious illness which is in agreement with my statement above. The disease burden, which accounts for mortality and morbidity, from lower and upper respiratory infections among people with age 25 to 29 (which covers my age) in Portugal (where I live) in 2023 was 0.00113 DALY/person-year (= (4.98 + 6.29)*10^-4). This corresponds to a loss of 0.413 d/person-year (= 0.00113*365.25), and therefore 3.85 h/year (= 0.413*9.33) less logged in my time sheet assuming all the disease burden from lower and uper respiratory infections is linked to the flu (which overestimates the damage caused by this). I got 2.09 h/year less neglecting serious illness, which suggests this accounts for a loss of 1.76 h/year (= 3.85 − 2.09). However, for the 2024-25 flu season in the US, only “11% of all patients hospitalized with influenza did not have any underlying medical conditions”, which applies to me. So I guess my expected harm due to serious illness caused by flus is 11 % as large, and implies logging 0.194 h/year (= 1.76*0.11) less in my time sheet. As a result, I estimate the harm from serious illness is 9.28 % (= 0.194/2.09) of my original estimate neglecting serious illness.
Hi Vasco, I didn’t see you account for the cost of serious illness from the flu (hospitalization, death). Young people may not be exempt as I believe some flus are more deadly for the young (e.g. Spanish flu). And the young have more life expectancy to lose. Given the large potential costs of serious illness, even if the probability is small could it be enough to flip your conclusion?
Hi Wayne. You are right I did not account for the possibility of serious illness.
Here is an estimation of the harm from serious illness which is in agreement with my statement above. The disease burden, which accounts for mortality and morbidity, from lower and upper respiratory infections among people with age 25 to 29 (which covers my age) in Portugal (where I live) in 2023 was 0.00113 DALY/person-year (= (4.98 + 6.29)*10^-4). This corresponds to a loss of 0.413 d/person-year (= 0.00113*365.25), and therefore 3.85 h/year (= 0.413*9.33) less logged in my time sheet assuming all the disease burden from lower and uper respiratory infections is linked to the flu (which overestimates the damage caused by this). I got 2.09 h/year less neglecting serious illness, which suggests this accounts for a loss of 1.76 h/year (= 3.85 − 2.09). However, for the 2024-25 flu season in the US, only “11% of all patients hospitalized with influenza did not have any underlying medical conditions”, which applies to me. So I guess my expected harm due to serious illness caused by flus is 11 % as large, and implies logging 0.194 h/year (= 1.76*0.11) less in my time sheet. As a result, I estimate the harm from serious illness is 9.28 % (= 0.194/2.09) of my original estimate neglecting serious illness.