With all the drama in our country right now it’s lovely that we can add the worry of not having enough flu vaccines for the entire population of the United States.

President George W. Bush has an excellent solution to the shortage, which is simply — don’t get one if you’re not at risk. Here’s the thing though, I really don’t get why it’s all that important for me, a 26-year-old to get a flu shot. I have never had one in my entire life, nor have any of my five siblings in a mixed family. That means two sets of parents never thought of it as a priority.

The influenza is a real threat according to William Anderson, professor of economics at Frostburg State University, who did a study on government and the flu. Williams said in an article titled “Government and the Flu: A Short History” that “on average 36,000 people die of the flu every year.”

Williams also said that the last pandemic this country saw of the flu was in 1918-19. This epidemic was largely the result of large groups of military troops being shipped home together spreading the flu to each other and then once home to their individual families.

These troops today would have been considered a high-risk group and the vaccine may have helped to avoid the death toll of over 500,000 people. Williams said in his article the population comparison today would have equaled about 1.4 million.

However, we need to consider how effective the flu shot actually is. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention claims a 70 percent effectiveness, but that lowers to about 30 to 40 percent in the elderly, according to another article on the Vaccination at Risk Awareness Network Web site by Dr. Kristine M. Severyn. Severyn said that actually narrowing down a particular strand of the flu that is going to hit this country is quite complex. The point is even if we have a vaccine the flu mutates year to year. Add the fact that makers of the vaccine have to start a year early leaves a lot of room for error. Severyn said in her article that she did not discount the fact that people over the age of 65 are at a higher risk, but the statistic is a little skewed when considering the facts.

“More than 90 percent of pneumonia and influenza deaths occur in persons 65 years of age or older,” Severyn said. “But that about 65 percent of all deaths (from any cause) occur in this age group anyway, it is nearly impossible to prove if flu shots significantly increase life expectancy in the elderly.”

Therefore in a nutshell it’s a bit of a toss up as to whether you’ll be better off or not. My point — relax it’s only the flu. You may have to stay in bed for a week but for most of us young adults it’s not a very real threat of death.

They probably didn’t have Nyquil or TheraFlu in 1819, and so consider yourselves lucky, at least we have relief from a week of illness and you’re excused from class for a week.