Colin Cabelka on The Importance of Community, Immunization, and Pizza

A couple weeks ago, I hosted a bike ride over to a small independent pharmacy in East Raleigh to get flu shots and pizza. This ride was a notable and unconventional demonstration in the power of community. For this event, a group of bike riders came together to make healthy decisions more fun and reduced the anxiety of getting a flu shot. The idea of this ride is a reflection of the common childhood experience of being rewarded (usually with candy) for bravery during a scary experience with a needle in the arm. I wanted to carry forward this experience by bringing together a bike adventure with a pizza party following your flu shot. We chose Franks Pizza, a staple of the East Raleigh community, for the pizza-party. This place has quintessential hometown mom-and-pop Italian restaurant vibes along with some of the best pizza in town. Overall, this setting brought a shared sense of childhood nostalgia to the experience while sharing a fun meal with friends as adults. 

The attendees of this event were relatively young people like myself who are typically the least concerned about a virus as being life-threatening to themselves. The flu shot is also known to have variable efficacy year to year. So, why was this ride important?

The concept of protecting vulnerable people in your community through influenza vaccination is a selfless act and well-studied to reduce illness duration and protective to the most vulnerable in our community.¹ Though most young people have not experienced debilitating illness with respiratory viruses, all of us know someone who is vulnerable to them. Viruses historically are exceedingly unpredictable and immunization offers an effective mechanism for protecting both yourself and those around you. The variability in yearly influenza strains brings variable efficacy to the vaccine’s ability to prevent flu infection, and this draws skepticism on the necessity of these yearly shots. However, it is important to keep in mind the vaccine’s consistently robust data reducing infection duration, severity, and transmission which can be considered as more important factors for many people.²  

The coercion from public health authorities and states to get vaccinated during COVID-19 was important during the time, but also sowed persisting suspicion and politicization of these institutions and health care providers of all stripes. In my opinion, the best remedy for this distrust is to be present in my community as an advocate and to roll up my own sleeve. I was joined by Jess Harris, an ICU physician assistant, who was enthusiastic to join this project and do the same. Advocacy, presence, and encouragement from a trusted medical provider, friend, or peer are just as essential as institutions to protecting public health in the community.  This ride ended up being both fun and effective, and I look forward to sharing the experience with others next year. 

1. Kim TH. Seasonal influenza and vaccine herd effect. Clin Exp Vaccine Res. 2014;3(2):128-132. doi:10.7774/cevr.2014.3.2.128
2. Deiss RG, Arnold JC, Chen WJ, et al. Vaccine-associated reduction in symptom severity among patients with influenza A/H3N2 disease. Vaccine. 2015;33(51):7160-7167. doi:10.1016/j.vaccine.2015.11.004