With approvals coming for updated flu and COVID vaccines, put health and safety above politics

This editorial is a consensus opinion of the Daily Herald Editorial Board.

A Washington Post Q&A with top medical experts from across the country that we published Sunday contained a wealth of valuable information about preparing for the upcoming flu and COVID season. But three ominous, related sentiments particularly stood out when the scientists were asked what worries them this year.

Said Ashish Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health and former White House COVID-19 response coordinator: "I've been worried that the anti-vaccine sentiment directed toward COVID will rub off against the flu. I look at this winter and think we're going to have three effective vaccines that can prevent a large chunk of deaths of older and vulnerable people. I worry that we're going to substantially underuse them, and it means tens of thousands of people will die unnecessarily."

Said William Schaffner, professor of preventive medicine in health policy at Vanderbilt University Medical Center: "I am most concerned that a large proportion of the public will not take advantage of the new monovalent (coronavirus) booster ... That could lead to a substantial number of preventable hospitalizations and deaths."

And, said Joanna Dolgoff, a pediatrician with Wellstar Health System in Marrietta, Georgia, and spokeswoman for the American Academy of Pediatrics: "I am worried about the return of the 'tripledemic,' meaning COVID, flu and RSV. ... Most people are now so relaxed about the viruses that they are no longer taking the simple precautions necessary to keep these diseases at bay."

One of the great mistakes of the pandemic crisis was the politicization that disrupted many people's trust not only in government's potential for alleviating suffering but also in that of the scientists who study disease and know the most about how to fight it. It is telling, and a bit unnerving, to see that the greatest fear of our top disease fighters is not whether the protections being prepared will work, but whether people will take advantage of them.

In a separate Q&A on the coming vacccines Tuesday, our Marni Pyke took the discussion a step further, laying the foundation for the expected approvals that could make vaccines available as soon as this week for the latest strains of the common flu, COVID-19 and RSV, a disease with serious potential for young children and older adults. Her reporting included this particularly important note from Dr. Michael Bauer, medical director at Northwestern Lake Forest Hospital: "We are very encouraged that this vaccine will also be targeting all these current omicron offshoots and work pretty darn well against them."

No, the breadth of the COVID threat is not what it was three years or even one year ago. But deaths and hospitalizations are on the rise, and the risk COVID poses - like that of the regular flu and even RSV - can be devastating to individuals and families. Failing to take "simple precautions" is dangerous both to you and to the people you will come in contact with this winter.

Don't let politics or whatever aversions you may have to government put your health and that of people you love at risk. Listen to the scientists. Schedule your shots as soon as they become available.