The pandemic has increased older adults' willingness to receive the flu shot, new research shows. The study analyzed survey results of 4,501 Canadians.
The pandemic has increased older adults willingness to receive the flu shot, new research shows.
The study analyzed survey results of 4,501 Canadians over the age of 50 from ten provinces.
Twenty per cent of 1,001 research participants aged 50 to 64 indicated they had not considered getting a flu shot, but were now more likely to given the impact of COVID-19. Of these respondents, 92 per cent inducated that they had not been vaccinated against influenza the year before.
Of the 3,500 participants aged 65 and older, eight per cent reported that they had not originally planned to get a flu shot but were now more likely to receive it.
KITCHENER Research led by the University of Waterloo finds that the pandemic has increased older adults’ willingness to receive the flu shot. According to a news release, the study analyzed survey results of over 4,500 Canadians over the age of 50 from 10 provinces. It found that 20 per cent of 1,001 research participants aged 50 to 64 indicated they had not considered getting a flu shot, but were now more likely to given the impact of COVID-19. Of these respondents, 92 per cent indicated that they had not been vaccinated against influenza the year before. According to researchers, of the 3,500 participants in the study aged 65 and older, eight per cent reported that they had not originally planned to get a flu shot, but were now more likely to receive it.
4 Feb
The chapel service for Ash Wednesday was our most well-attended service of the year when I worked as a hospital chaplain. Maybe it was because at a hospital, there are everyday reminders of life and death. The healthcare workers who came for the mark of ashes knew well the miracle and frailty of life. The visitors who came perhaps wanted a taste of a familiar ritual as they maneuvered the unexpected or difficult within the hospital walls.
Despite this reasoning, its popularity still struck me as odd as a young chaplain. I had noticed that our society is often “allergic” to death: People don’t like talking about it, there is a cult of youth in culture, and it’s often tempting to make decisions that do not take our finitude into account. Yet, one function of Ash Wednesday is to remind us of the frailty of the human condition in a most basic way: We are dust, and to dust we will return (Genesis 3:19).