Yet you should still be getting the flu vaccine
I mean noise in both the colloquial sense, as well as the statistical one. It's difficult to measure the effectiveness of treatments when what you're treating is so relatively harmless. An experimental study, outside of an absurd size, would show 0 deaths. So you only have observational studies left, which tend to be deeply flawed and highly susceptible to number juking.
In any case, if somebody dies from the flu they were likely quite elderly, or had severe preexisting conditions. And so it's this group of people that taking things like a flus hot can make the most sense. But if you take e.g. a younger to mid aged person of good health, his chance of dying from the flu are practically zero. If they want to get it, more power to them. But saying all people should get a flu shot, does not seem to make much sense.
Getting it yearly may also reduce the risk of other related conditions e.g. https://www.uth.edu/news/story/uthealth-houston-study-flu-va...
It's nearly risk free and it's definitely worth it even if all it did was decrease the severity of flu if you catch it (and it does more than that).
Also, the risk of something needs to be put in context of the risk of what you're protecting against. If something only has a severe negative side effect 1 in a million times, then it absolutely should be considered extremely low risk. But you're risk of whatever it's protecting against only has a severe outcome 1 in 2 million times? Well not only should it also then be considered extremely low risk, but getting the treatment would be quite illogical. These risks also needs to be multiplied repeatedly for low efficacy treatments which entail annual use.
Absolute risk reduction (ARR), relative risk reduction (RRR), number needed to treat (NNT), number needed to harm (NNH).
Reading about these is a good starting point for anyone wanting to understand more about the decision making process.
It does both of those things. Maybe read: https://www.cdc.gov/flu/vaccines-work/vaccineeffect.htm
> Also, the risk of something needs to be put in context of the risk of what you're protecting against
True. And one thing we're protecting against is getting the flu. That has a probability much much higher than 1 in 2 million.
This is an insane perspective, eventually leading to totalitarianism. Thinking this to the end, everyone should get forced to be vaccinated for everything, because it might save someone who might die from it.
"Protect the weak and innocent" is a great excuse for reducing the freedoms of people.
Absolutely insane.
"Your own personal chance of death is not all that matters" is just a fact. There are outcomes other than your death that should influence your decisions.