[acdha]

We arguably should be taking influenza more seriously but influenza is not sending people to the hospitals at levels sufficient to cause overload, or increasing the death rates substantially. We also still have some gaps — for example, the COVID vaccines are more effective than the influenza vaccines (it is a famously mutagenic virus) but the flu vaccines are available to even very young children whereas children under 5 cannot be vaccinated.

Don't forget, this is not a permanent forever program but a reaction to a raging pandemic. If we had high enough vaccination rates to keep COVID patients from overwhelming the medical system, that would drive the stress down to something like influenza levels and we could relax measures accordingly.

[nradov]

In prior years hospitals were routinely overloaded during the winter by influenza and other respiratory viruses.

https://youtu.be/GklHGYY8vN8

[acdha]

Yes, but this is worse and global. Again, I’m talking about the current problem, not saying that we shouldn’t take precautions for the flu — we should be doing easy precautionary measures like mask mandates anytime things are getting overloaded, including improving capacity. The American health system being designed for profit maximization means we have less resilience even under non-pandemic conditions.