A Shot of Prevention
January can be the cruellest month north of the 49th parallel; it is the height of the flu season, during which up to one in four Canadians will get sick. Influenza and resulting bacterial infections kill roughly 6,700 Canadians each year and send 75,000 to hospital. And tens of thousands more become less severely ill; those with jobs will miss about three days of work, on average, and when they do drag themselves back, their productivity will suffer for as much as two weeks.
So preventing spread of the flu has substantial health and economic benefits. Enter the annual flu vaccination campaign. "We know vaccination decrease...