image description — The flu vaccine has dramatic impacts on public health.

Flu Shot: It's That Time Again

By Dr. Everett Lamm11:45AM / Tuesday, October 01, 2019Print Story | Email Story

With flu season around the corner, your health care providers, employers, pharmacists and others are sounding the annual reminder: "Get your annual flu shot." We encourage this for you — and for the people around you, too. We see evidence every year of the benefits of the flu vaccine, and we also see the risks of skipping it.

The flu vaccine has dramatic impacts on public health. However, since strains of the flu may vary from year to year, the vaccine must be received annually. Although the vaccine doesn't guarantee a flu-free winter and perfect health, medical research has convincingly shown that the flu shot reduces flu severity and reduces sick visits, hospitalizations and intensive care admissions. For infants and the elderly and those with compromised immune systems, the flu shot is essential protection against serious illness.

Although Massachusetts has historically ranked high in its overall immunization rates — 50 percent of all residents received vaccines in 2015-16 flu season — that percentage dropped from 55 percent the year before. The lowest rates of vaccination are in residents 18-49 — 40 percent for the 2015-16 season, but vaccine rates for all age groups (except young children) dropped slightly as well.

Some people have medical reasons for being unable to have the shot, but others go without by choice. Why? They may feel confident in their own good health and their body's ability to ward off illness. They may be skeptical about vaccines in general. However, skipping the flu vaccine means taking an unnecessary risk – for yourself and others whom you care for or work with, or who may be more vulnerable than you to illness.

Here's what we know about the flu vaccine from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC):

* During flu seasons when the vaccine is well-matched with flu strains that are circulating, the vaccine is shown to reduce the need for flu-related medical visits by 30 to 60 percent.

* During the 2016-17 flu season, the vaccine prevented an estimated 5.3 million flu illnesses, 2.6 million medical visits for the flu and 85,000 flu-related hospitalizations.

* The vaccine reduces the severity of flu symptoms for those who may get sick, and reduces hospital-based Intensive Care Unit admissions related to the flu.

* The flu vaccine is a preventive measure for people with other chronic illnesses, such as cardiac, diabetes and lung diseases.

* Children and pregnant women are especially susceptible to complications from the flu. The vaccine has repeatedly reduced the risk of flu-related deaths among children by 50 percent.

In addition, if you are exposed to someone else who has the flu virus, you may not get sick, but you can pass on the virus to others. Do you have a young child? Do you care for an elderly relative or a chronically sick friend? Are you a teacher or a health care provider?

It is true that flu vaccines are not foolproof. Flu strains may differ from year to year and efforts to keep up with its changing characteristics are not 100 percent effective.

Some myths and misinformation are "out there" — even one claiming that the flu shot causes the flu. This is unequivocally false. In fact, flu vaccines are "inactivated," which means they contain no actual influenza (flu) virus at all. If someone falls ill after getting a flu shot, there are several explanations:

* The flu shot takes about two weeks to take full protective effect. A person can get the flu during this period.

* If someone was exposed to the flu just prior to getting the flu shot, he or she might coincidentally get sick around the time of a vaccine.

* Just because someone gets sick, does not mean that influenza ("the flu") is the culprit. There are many other non-flu illnesses that can be contracted. This is the time of year for increased respiratory illnesses and pneumonia.

* There are some outlying strains of the flu not covered by the typical flu shot. Unfortunately it is possible to contract one of these non-vaccine containing flu strains.

To protect your health and those around you – loved ones, friends, co-workers – please take the preventive step of getting your flu shot this season. You could save a life by doing so – and reduce your own risk of contracting the miserable and dangerous flu virus.

Dr. Everett Lamm is the chief medical officer of Community Health Programs.

Tags: CHP, flu,

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The Round Stone Barn is 200 as Hancock Shaker Village Celebrates

By Breanna SteeleiBerkshires.com
11:49AM / Monday, August 03, 2026

PITTSFIELD, Mass. – Hancock Shaker Village shared a bicentennial birthday, inviting the community to take part in the festivities.

On Sunday, Hancock Shaker Village celebrated the 200th birthday of their signature Round Stone Barn, the only circular barn ever built by the Shakers.

"The Round Stone Barn turned 200 this year," Hancock Shaker Village CEO Carrie Holland said. "It was erected in 1826, so we thought we would celebrate with the whole community. We'd do some cupcakes, and then we're lucky to work with Yo-Yo Ma's team to curate some special performances in the Round Stone Barn."

The community was invited to come to the village for free and take part in a wide range of activities including tours, live music from Ida Mae Specker Trio and Tanglewood, demonstrations, and more.

The Round Stone Barn is widely recognized as an architectural icon and agricultural wonder.

The Shakers operated a working dairy farm at Hancock until the 1950s, and the barn was originally a stable for its 52 milk cows, according to the museum's website.

It has ground-level access on all three levels so, wagons could enter on the upper level to deposit hay into the central haymow on the main floor below, then the empty wagons would be driven around the circular barn floor and exit the same door it came in, eliminating the potentially dangerous activity of backing wagons out of a barn, the website said.

The cows stabled on the main floor faced inward toward the haymow for ease of feeding and manure was shoveled through trapdoors to the cellar, where it was stored until needed as fertilizer in the gardens.

"Every time anyone comes into the timber frame, it's the very first thing that they see, and they always say, 'It's just like a photograph,' and it is," Director of Collections Kathleen Lynch said. "It's beautiful. People want to get married in front of it. We did our Christmas the festival of trees in here, and the mechanisms of it are so phenomenal."

Hundreds enjoyed music in the round barn and celebrated with free cupcakes and food trucks while listening on the history the village portrays.

"I think this is one of our most iconic buildings, and a lot of people have their own memories tied to it," Holland said. "We do baby animals here, and so there's personal history. ... But it's also a fantastic opportunity to share a bit about the Shakers, their design techniques and practices, their sort of obsession with making operations efficient, because this is used as a dairy barn, and so they created these three layers to make their operations more efficient."

"So you can talk about their innovation. Of course, they're the longstanding legacy of agriculture here. So it provides us an opportunity to kind of share the Shaker history in this beautiful space, tied to folks who have their own personal memories here as well, and it's such an impressive, beautiful spot. I have such appreciation for what it took to build this 200 years ago, and whenever we can do fun things and throw good parties here, it's a great day.""

Holland helps build momentum for the unveiling of Hancock Shaker Village's new visitor center that is planned to take place next month.

The new facility will include updated galleries, community event spaces, collection storage, and research areas for the museum's collection of over 22,000 Shaker artifacts and ephemera. The renovated building aims to enhance the visitor experience through improved orientation, expanded program offerings, closer access to collection items, and views of the surrounding landscape.

"Part of what we're also celebrating is past, present, future, and the future," Holland said. "We're very excited for expanded programming. We're opening our new visitor center, our Center for Shaker Studies, so that creates a whole new opportunity for our visitor experience, our galleries, our stewardship, and then that relates also to the programming that we can do in the historic village."

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