Hanan Babikir Bedri, MS, MA, is executive director of New Hampshire Public Health Association.

There is one essential thing everyone in the Granite State can do to protect their health and the health of their loved ones. This measure is easy to access and highly effective. It is vaccination, and it has the potential to save someone’s life — if not your own, then that of someone close to you. Doing your part to help secure the health of those around you is a simple matter of a visit to the pharmacy.

Three viruses are especially dangerous this time of year: flu, RSV, and SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19). This is the time of year when all three of them spread fastest and farthest and when seeking protection against them is an urgent matter. While getting vaccinated may only save you a day or more spent in bed with a cloth on your forehead, it might also be a matter of life and death.

The flu, or seasonal influenza, is the most well-known among the threats that we should all be vaccinated for. It is familiar enough that its name is often used colloquially as shorthand for virtually any infectious virus, as in the case of a “stomach flu,” which is in fact something unrelated. Influenza is a specific and well-known respiratory virus, one that mutates every year so a new vaccine is needed annually in order to be fully protected against it. A highly contagious illness, the World Health Organization has found that it afflicts roughly a billion people each year worldwide, with between three and five million severe cases occurring among them, and between 290,000 and 650,000 deaths.

RSV, or respiratory syncytial virus, is a common respiratory ailment. Usually, it is not severe, with cold-like symptoms and a recovery period of one or two weeks. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention finds that severe cases do occur, however, and they can and do lead to hospitalization. According to the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, RSV causes about 160,000 deaths per year worldwide. Infants and adults over sixty-five years of age are especially vulnerable to it.

Also, despite the cessation of precautionary measures against transmission of the virus, SARS-CoV-2 still poses a threat to the health of those of us in New Hampshire and elsewhere. From December 2019 to the end of 2023, the WHO finds that there have been more than 760 million cases worldwide and 6.9 million deaths. Estimates of the full tolls of death and infection climb higher. It is hardly necessary to rehearse these details, as many of us have lost loved ones to the virus, and/or have suffered through it ourselves with our lives intact. Furthermore, the WHO has warned that SARS-CoV 2, as many surely know, can cause Long COVID, in which ill effects of the virus persist well after it has left one’s system, impeding the ability to perform daily activities. Despite how we have publicly seemed to move on from the pandemic, it is still essential that we protect ourselves against this dangerous virus.

The good news is that for most of us in the Granite State these vaccines cost either nothing or almost nothing. Recommended vaccines, including flu, COVID-19, and RSV for infants and pregnant individuals are free for anyone under 19 years of age. For adults, the SARS-CoV 2 vaccine is covered by insurance, and if you are uninsured it is provided at no or low cost at many pharmacy locations through the HHS Bridge Access Program. To find COVID-19 vaccines near you, go to vaccines.gov/. If you are 19 years of age, please check with your provider or pharmacy about the cost of flu or RSV vaccine, as insurance coverage and availability of no-cost vaccines may vary.

The coronavirus pandemic that began in 2020 brought to our attention a whole discourse concerning infectious diseases and measures we can take to stop them from spreading. Many of us wore masks in public spaces, and/or avoided those spaces altogether when we could. We have learned the importance of air circulation and the potential for air purification systems that might help prevent the spread of disease and keep us healthy. As things stand now, most indoor spaces are without air purifiers, and mask mandates have long since been lifted, but these viruses continue to circulate. Infected people everywhere are bringing contagions with them to the grocery store, to gas stations, to the gym, and everywhere else we are likely to encounter them.

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When all of the other countermeasures that can protect us from infectious diseases have fallen away, you still have access to one of the most effective of them all. Vaccines for influenza, RSV, and SARS-CoV-2 are readily available to all, thanks to measures taken by the CDC nationally and the state of New Hampshire more locally. These vaccines are available at doctors’ offices, pharmacies, clinics, and college health centers across the state.

Winter is not over. The season that is notorious for the spread of infectious respiratory illnesses, such as the common cold and the flu, among others, is still upon us. The more time we spend indoors, which we must do at frigid times like these, the more we expose ourselves to the germs that others exhale, some of which have the potential to render us bedridden or worse. Every time we enter an indoor public space, we roll the dice. Getting vaccinated is an effective and low-risk protection against them.