‘It’s not too late’: Health commission pushes for more vaccination in face of flu uptick
The Boston Public Health Commission is ramping up vaccination efforts following an increase in influenza cases.
Across the city, the BPHC is holding free clinics, offering residents the opportunity to get a flu or COVID shot in response to an “extreme uptick” in cases, said Dr. Bisola Ojikutu, the city’s public health commissioner.
According to data from the state Department of Public Health, influenza-like illness activity across the Commonwealth is “very high” — the topmost of a five-category scale that Massachusetts uses to rate activity.
Since mid-December, the state has not gone below a “high” rating, with six of the nine weeks that Massachusetts has released data for earning a “very high.”
The data found that across a collection of health facilities in the state that serve as “sentinel sites” to track the numbers, 10.22% of visits to facilities were related to influenza-like illnesses, as of the week of Feb. 9.
That was down from the week before, when the trend hit a peak at nearly 12% of visits, but still above last year’s 6.27% and the baseline of 1.9% — a value determined by the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that serves as a benchmark for what qualifies as higher-than-normal levels of influenza.
In Boston, in particular, there were 326 confirmed influenza cases in the week ending Feb. 22. Hospital emergency department visits for flu-like illness clocked in at about 7%.
The numbers reflect a national trend, as, across the country, communities are seeing increased influenza cases.
According to the CDC, as of the week ending with Feb. 15, there were 7.2 cases per 100,000 people — more than twice what it was last year.
The peak of flu cases is coming later than in years past. In the past few years, the peak of cases fell in December or early January. This season, there was a bump in cases in early January that dipped throughout that month before rising into a higher peak in early February.
“People feeling that this was a big flu season is very real,” said Renee Crichlow, chief medical officer at Codman Square Health Center.
Crichlow said the health center staff has been tracking a higher-than-usual volume of flu-related visits, both to primary care providers and the facility’s urgent care.
Though it is well into flu season, which runs from October through May, it’s still worth getting a shot, said Ojikutu said.
“A lot of people have asked me — and my patients have asked me — ‘Is it too late to get vaccinated?’” Ojikutu said. “Well, no, it’s not too late to get vaccinated.”
A vaccination against flu — as with the COVID shot — decreases the risk of severe illness, hospitalization and death.
“Flu vaccine can see the difference between a mild case of flu and a wild case of flu,” she said.
According to the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, flu vaccination rates across the state are lagging behind where they were last year about two percentage points, and is lower than any season in the past six years, except for the 2019-2020 flu season.
At Boston’s vaccine clinics, community members can walk in and get a free flu or COVID vaccine, with or without insurance, no questions asked. Staff can also answer any questions about respiratory viral illnesses.
Statewide, Black residents are less likely to be vaccinated, with 31.5% of residents having received their flu vaccine compared to 37.4% of white residents or 38.8% of residents overall, according to the state.
Part of that lag might be long-standing distrust of the vaccine in Black and brown communities.
“It has a very bad reputation within our community, and I think that we place ourselves at greater risk because of that,” Crichlow said.
But the vaccine is safe and important to prevent serious illness or death — something Crichlow said she tries to model by taking her whole family to get vaccinated at the beginning of every flu season.
“It’s basically something we do as a family day — go on down; get our vaccines; everyone leaves with a little Band-Aid on,” she said. “It’s one of the ways that we help protect each other.”
And it’s a lesson she’d like to see residents throughout Boston’s communities of color take up, too.
“I’ve seen the consequences of bad flu illness, and I want to make sure that we try to protect people against that,” she said.
As with the city’s vaccine clinics, Codman Square Health Center is still offering the flu vaccine.
Beyond vaccination, Ojikutu and Crichlow recommended following all the best practices for preventing the spread of respiratory viruses generally: steps like washing one’s hands frequently and well, cleaning high-touch surfaces, staying home if sick and wearing a mask to prevent the spread of the respiratory droplets that carry the virus.
“We would like people to recognize that masking does still work,” Ojikutu said.
At Codman Square Health Center, Crichlow said, all patient-facing workers are instructed to start wearing a mask when they track an increase in respiratory illnesses — something she encouraged patients and community members to do, too, if they have any hint of illness or are at higher risk — like older residents or those with multiple chronic illnesses.
“Folks may think they have allergies, but you don’t want to catch someone’s allergies, if you know what I mean,” she said.
For patients who don’t have access to masks, health centers like the one in Codman Square can provide them to community members.
Reducing the spread and severity of the disease is an important step, both Crichlow and Ojikutu said.
“Not everybody pays that much attention to it, but it is certainly a cause of death,” Ojikutu said.
Massachusetts has logged 191 influenza-related deaths this flu season. In comparison, there were 251 deaths statewide during the last flu season.
Nationwide, preliminary data from the CDC estimates that flu-related deaths could range anywhere from 19,000 to 92,000.
“One of the things I think a lot of people don’t truly understand, is that, yes, some people get the flu, they’re a little sick and get better in a couple of days, but flu is an illness that kills tens of thousands of people every year,” Crichlow said.
Much of the effect is not immediately visible to most people, Crichlow said, but as a medical provider who works in in-patient and out-patient settings, she said she has seen the impact that influenza can have.
“I see the consequences of someone who’s gotten the flu from a family member, who’s on a ventilator in the [intensive care unit],” Crichlow said. “We need to really think of it as something that is a little more severe, that has consequences that a lot of people don’t really see but a lot of people get devastated by.”
Community members looking to receive a vaccine through one of the free BPHC clinics can go to the Josephine Fiorentino Community Center in Brighton between 3 p.m. and 7 p.m. on Feb. 28 or to the Charlestown YMCA from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. on March 1.
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