Rare events, like a plague lab accident, create fear, while more common infections get less attention.

Flu and COVID cause hundreds of thousands of hospitalizations every year.

Flu and COVID vaccines are safe and reduce the risk of severe illness.

Flu and COVID vaccines lower the risk of heart attacks and other cardiac complications from these infections.

One of the biggest news stories in global health this past month was about a possible laboratory accident in Russia involving plague. Media outlets reported that a 28-year-old woman working at a plague research facility in Siberia died from pneumonic plague and that 200 people were placed under observation. Russian officials denied that the case was plague, attributing her death to "pneumonia of unknown origin."

Stories spread across mainstream media and social media about whether there might be a resurgence of the plague or the emergence of a new pathogen. How did I respond? I made an appointment at my local pharmacy to get the annual flu and COVID vaccines. Let me explain.

We Fear What’s Rare and Forget About What’s Common

With many public policy problems, humans tend to react most viscerally to low-probability, high-consequence events. Think about the fear and intensity of media coverage that comes from airplane accidents compared with car accidents. Plane accidents are extremely uncommon. Most people do not fly very often and, even if they did, the National Safety Council estimates that the lifetime odds of dying in a plane crash are too small to even calculate.

Compare that with car accidents. Almost every........

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