It takes manufacturers at least six months to create large quantities of flu vaccines, so they need to decide well ahead of the flu season which versions of which viruses to target
As these viruses mutate and spread, they are adept at reconfiguring the proteins that sit on their surfaces, making them less recognisable to people’s immune systems, even those that have encountered similar viruses before. As a result, flu vaccines need to be updated and re-administered every year.
In February 2021 those experts, using information from the viruses circulating in previous months in the southern hemisphere, selected four viruses for this year’s vaccines for the northern hemisphere. By the start of October, those vaccines should start going into arms. What explains such low levels of flu? Because of covid-19, people were wearing face masks, social distancing, washing their hands, avoiding public transport and staying at home. This also helped limit the spread of other respiratory viruses, including influenza.
A second big unknown is how people’s immune systems, which have largely avoided influenza for more than a year, will respond when they do encounter it. The mild or non-existent influenza season of 2020-21 was probably welcome at a time when covid-19 was killing tens of thousands of people and putting many more in hospitals.
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