(upbeat music) - From the studios of Boise State Public Radio News, I'm Gemma Gaudet. This is Idaho Matters. The number of children dying from influenza in the 2023/24 flu season has unfortunately set a new record. 200 children have lost their lives to flu this year. This according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Dr. David Payne, the former CEO of St. Luke's Health System and the co-author of the book Preparing for the Next Global Outbreak is joining us now to talk more about this. Hi, Dr. Payne. - Hi, Gemma. - And folks, remember, if you have a public health question, you can send us an email, Idaho Matters@boisestate.edu. So Dr. Payne, I was frankly stunned when I saw this report out from the CDC and they noted in their report that it's due to children not being vaccinated for the flu. - Yeah, that's true. By and large, there are exceptions. There are some children who were vaccinated, who were immunocompromised and just didn't get a good enough response. But by and large, what the CDC is telling us is that many of these deaths were likely preventable. Most of the children who died, either didn't weren't vaccinated or they were under vaccinated. In other words, when children up to the age of eight have not previously been vaccinated, they need two shots for their first time. And those two shots should be a month apart. So some of the children got the one shot, but not the second, others just didn't get any. And that's a tragedy. - Dr. Payne, is there an idea that the flu is just kind of like a bad cold, you're gonna get better? I mean, it's kind of this idea that it's flu season, you might get the flu. - Yes, there are a number of misconceptions out there. Many of these being actively promoted by people that either don't know what they're talking about or who are actually part of a concerted vaccine disinformation campaign. So first of all, there is often widespread confusion that influenza or the flu is no worse than a cold. That is not true. While for many people, they may not experience it worse than a cold, influenza kills many more people than do our routine cold viruses. The second thing is there is a school of thought among a small amount of Americans, but significant that somehow getting these infections is good for you, it builds your immunity, and that just is not true. And then the third thing is this kind of prevailing thought that's been perpetrated by disinformation spreaders during the COVID pandemic that, you know, we don't need to worry about children. Children are healthy, resilient, they bounce back, they don't get as sick. And many times that is the case, but young children and particularly those up to age eight are often at increased risk for many viruses. We've talked about RSV being more lethal in babies and infants. COVID was more fatal in very young children. So there are many exceptions and to just paint children as well, you know, they're gonna be healthy and we don't need to worry about them is really not the case. - So what options are there for parents when it comes to getting their kiddos vaccinated? I'm trying to remember back to when I believe it's six months is when they can get their first flu vaccine. And the thing that really struck me was I have, I have, my youngest was born in November and, you know, he couldn't get the flu vaccine. He was my kiddo that got RSV, you know, because of when he, the time of year he was born. And, you know, so, and then with my oldest, I remember being able to get a nasal vaccine for the flu, but do they do that anymore? - They do. - So, but you have to, if my recollection serves me, you have to be over two years of age for the nasal vaccine. So for infants and toddlers right now, you should definitely discuss this with your pediatrician. We're coming up on the flu season. We're not there quite yet, but we are imminently approaching it. And so we can give the flu vaccine to children. And as I just said, when we give the typical vaccines, if it's their first time, they need two doses. After that, they only need one dose. Or if your child is already eight years old or older, we pretty much presume they've been exposed to flu. And so they just need to get one shot. So that's something that can easily be taken care of. Check with your pediatrician now. The second thing is, as you mentioned, there is a nasal vaccine that can be given to children. And that actually contains some weakened, but not killed viruses, opposed to the shots that have killed virus. And so if people get the shots, you can have a reaction to the shot and some of the things there. But what we actually do with the nasal flu vaccine, flu missed, is we actually give a, we can form the virus, but we need that virus to cause the immune system to react to it so we don't kill it, but we just make it so that it's not likely to cause anything near like the real flu. But that cannot be given to children who have immune system. So if they have a weakened immune system, their only option is the shots, not the nasal vaccine. - And it is officially October and there is definitely a big push to get your flu vaccine. But Dr. Pate, I would assume we're not yet in a space where we should be getting our flu vaccine quite yet. - You're right. And so different parts of the world have their flu seasons at different times. And even from year to year, it can vary. And so I'm certainly monitoring this. While the United States does have flu year round, it is in very, very low levels throughout the rest of the year when it's not flu season. It really takes off in the fall and winter and typically subsides in the spring. I just checked and I've been checking every week for the updated flu numbers, still extremely low levels right now. And the reason that we advise listeners to kind of strategically time when you're gonna get your flu shot is that the protection you get from the flu shot does wane fairly quickly. And therefore we want to get you vaccinated once we start seeing that rise of cases so that we know that you're gonna be protected from that surge unless you happen to be one of those unlucky ones on the front end. But for most people that will protect them and it will carry them through longer into the spring where we still see a higher than baseline number of cases of flu. So we're just trying to make sure you're protected when it really hits and also try to get you as long a coverage through the flu season as we can. - And before we get to some listener questions, Dr. Pate, you've rounded up a list of pharmacies where folks can get the latest COVID vaccine which folks should be doing right now. - So what I did is on my blog, I put a number of resources that are responsive to a lot of questions that we get on this show, Gemma, where can I find the vaccine or where could I, a common question I get is people want a particular one of the vaccines because either that, they tolerated that very well before or they just have a preference for one. So on my blog at drpatesblog.com, the first thing I have is the vaccine locator from the government and what that I give you the website and it's vaccine.gov, if you don't want to go to the website, it's just vaccine.gov. And then you enter your zip code and it will provide you with a list of all the pharmacies, their addresses, their phone numbers and links to those pharmacies in response that are in your area. And that way it just makes you, it easier particularly if you know the pharmacy you want to go to to get your vaccine, then that can be very helpful. Now, if you're looking for a specific vaccine, then I give you the three websites that are for the Novavax, for the Pfizer and for the Moderna and to make it easy, then those are the locators where if you know you want a particular one, then you can click on that and it will give you a list of pharmacies that have that marked vaccine. They'll give you the address, they'll give you the phone numbers and give you the links so that you can get online and schedule for that if you like as well. - Okay, I want to get to some listener questions now. One listener wrote in and she said, "My daughter had an unpleasant short reaction "to her first adult strain COVID vaccine last year "when she turned 12. "She had received the recommended COVID vaccine "in previous years with no problem. "So should we anticipate eight hours of misery again this year "or might it just be that that was her first adult dose last year?" - Well, the likelihood is that it was just this last year because of the fact that she went from 11 to 12. And at that point, as we discussed before, because your son had a similar issue, Gemma, if you recall. And what we said is that for the Moderna vaccine, it's not quite as big a deal because those kids are already getting at higher dose. And when it's increased to the adult dose, it's not as big an impact. It's a doubling of the dose. What happens for Pfizer is, and that's what my guess would be that listeners referring to. Probably your daughter got Pfizer. It's about a 10-fold increase. So you certainly, the amount of reaction you can have to a vaccine certainly is related to the dose. That would be my guess. My expectation would be that the next one at the similar dose probably won't be as bad as that. But if that is a major concern, another option now that she is 12 is they can always consider no effects because that vaccine has repeatedly been shown to be less what we call reactogenic. In other words, the swelling of the arm, the soreness, the fevers, as she refers to it, the eight hours of misery, we're much less likely to see that with Novavac. So that is an option, but it's only option for those that are 12 and older. But my guess is that she probably got Pfizer. And if she gets it again this year or next year, my guess is it she'll still have a reaction, but it won't be as bad or as long. - Okay, so Sandy wrote in and she and her husband visited a friend in intensive care at St. Luke's recently. They were allowed to take turns visiting her and she says, "We noticed we were the only ones "wearing masks." None of the staff members in the intensive care ward were wearing masks. I have to say we were shocked by this. We would love it if you could explain Dr. Pate. It seems like a massive lack of common sense. - I would love it if I could explain it too, but I can't. And it is a great source of aggravation to me. We know there's no question that this virus is spread through aerosols. If there were talking about any other aerosol spread virus, they would all be taking those precautions. But for some reason, it's been a massive abrogation of duty by infection control practitioners, nursing leaders, medical leaders, hospital and health system leaders. We know that this virus is spread in hospitals if they don't take precautions. And what we know is that the mortality rate of people that acquire COVID in the hospital is orders of magnitude higher likely related to the fact that you're probably not perfectly healthy if you're in the hospital. And so you're gonna be at increased risk. And the fact that we have just gotten to the point of just really ignoring this threat and not just for patients, but for staff. There are, right now there's an inquiry going on in a European country where they are grilling those leaders about why they didn't, why they ignored all the science and they didn't protect healthcare workers. So, and with the healthcare shortage, it doesn't make sense to get our employees sick repeatedly. We know what the risks are, repeated infections and their healthcare costs are gonna go up. And it's just none of this makes sense. So yes, I would love to be able to explain it to you. I've tried talking to hospital leaders. I still cannot get any kind of response or explanation or just idea of, okay, if you're not doing that, what else are you doing to protect people? I get nothing. - Well, Dr. Pate, as always, we sure appreciate you and appreciate you answering our listener questions. Remember folks, if you do have a public health question, you can always send us an email, Idaho Matters, at BoiseState.edu and we will answer those next week. We've been talking with Dr. David Pate. He is the former CEO of St. Luke's Health System, as well as the co-author of the book preparing for the next global outbreak. Thanks so much for listening to Idaho Matters, Boise State Public Radio and Idaho Matters are members of the NPR Network. It's an independent coalition of public media podcasters. You can find more shows in the network wherever you get your podcasts. 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