Why might you get an illness even when you’ve been vaccinated? Elizabeth Tracey reports

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You probably know people who got the Covid vaccines but still got the illness, sometimes multiple times. Ditto for flu vaccines. Before you simply choose not to be vaccinated, consider some facts about vaccines offered by Anna Durbin, a vaccine expert at Johns Hopkins.

Durbin: Vaccines are not designed to prevent infection. Vaccines are designed to make sure that you don't get really sick or potentially even be hospitalized or die from an illness. They may not prevent you from getting infected but they will make that infection much, much more mild. For flu vaccine I try to get my vaccine early to mid-October. It's before the height of the flu season. We did have an unusual occurrence of the H1N1 when it first came out many years ago where we saw cases over the summer but that's very unusual.  :35

Durbin says vaccination may also make you less likely to spread infection to others. At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.