And more importantly, a secondary effect that keeps the virus from your nose/mouth when naturally touching your face. If you pick up a virus from an door knob/elevator button in public, and you wash your hands and avoid touching your face, you are much less likely to get the flu. America is to vain to wear a mask, but they should, in public.
With that being said, I get my flu shot the week it is made available.
Yup. The wife and stepson got what appeared to be Norovirus a couple months back and I noodled that and went to level IV sterilization of surfaces and hand washing and dodged the bullet. That was close! I was ecstatic to miss being married to the porcelain bowl for 2 days :-)