Town official urges community to get flu shot

There is no question that Taos has helped to lead the state and the nation in demonstrating how to combat a global public health threat through quick action, public discipline and in many, many cases, significant personal and economic sacrifice.

We have flattened the curve and learned how to reopen slowly but safely and continue to edge back to normal life based on close monitoring, extensive planning and unprecedented cooperation by our residents and businesses.

But we are now entering fall (flu and cold season) and winter (more indoor time) and science tells us that respiratory infections increase as we move indoors in closer proximity to each other and share the same air and space.

Last year Taos was hit hard by an unspecified “influenza” that hit many of us so hard that people have been asking if Taos had already been experiencing COVID-19 as far back as December or September of last year.

Medical experts have now determined that almost half of the flu-like respiratory cases we experienced were the N1H1 virus (swine flu), which is a Type A influenza virus with symptoms very similar to COVID-19, and was the same virus that in 2010 threatened to become the very type of pandemic that we are now facing.

The Centers for Disease Control and World Health Organization are projecting that the flu season we are about to enter is also likely to have a heavy rate of

H1N1 again and cannot only cause serious flu-like respiratory and secondary symptoms that may become confused with COVID-19, but could also clog up our health systems, from your family doctor’s office and clinics to emergency rooms and ICU’s, at the same time that COVID-19 is seeing a second wave around the world and in dozens of states.

The good news is that we are prepared for COVID, H1N1 and other varieties of the flu this time. The current seasonal flu vaccine available to everyone through your pharmacy, doctor and other outlets at little or no cost contains protection against multiple strains of influenza, including H1N1.

The ability to effectively prevent or eliminate a public health crises, like any crises, relies on having a good plan and resources in place in advance – and a good plan requires good, accurate data to base that plan on.

To that end, the town is partnering with Holy Cross Medical Center, the New Mexico Department of Health and an unprecedented community-wide task force of local physicians and medical providers to launch a survey of our community to find out critical information such as who has received or plans to receive a flu shot, who doesn’t want to get one and why, barriers to getting vaccinated (such as cost, time, personal or religious beliefs, or not knowing where to go) and how to most effectively get information to our community and answer your questions and concerns.

This information will not only help us be more effective in preventing a

“twin-demic” of COVID and the flu simultaneously, but will also help us develop a model for how to effectively provide a COVID-19 vaccine to those needing and wanting it – if and when one is available – and to be better prepared for future public health and other community crises like the one we are experiencing now.

How fast we reopen stores and recreation, travel and have weddings and family gatherings again, get back into classrooms and all get back to work and save our economy this winter will be as dependent on how we handle the flu as how we handle COVID.

I want to personally thank each of you for what you have done so far in our battle against COVID and ask for your continued help in staying the course by wearing masks in public, social distancing and avoiding large gatherings.

And, I am asking on behalf of our businesses, schools and medical community for your help with the next phase in our community-wide struggle back to normalcy that you and your family both get vaccinated with the currently available and safe flu shot and complete our on-line community immunization survey, whether you get a flu shot or not.

Go to our website at taosgov.com/vaccinationinformation, let your voice be heard and help us to continue to make Taos the safest, healthiest community on the planet.