Daily Inspiration Quote by Michael Burgess

Burgess is trying to sound like the adult in the room while quietly giving an adult permission slip to opt out. The opening clause is a neat bit of rhetorical judo: he frames his decision not as ideology but as circumstance ("absence of a flu vaccination"), shifting responsibility away from himself and onto supply, timing, bureaucracy - anything but personal choice. For an elected official, that matters: it telegraphs pragmatism, not anti-vax identity.

Then comes the soothing middle: "there is still some immunity that carries over from year to year". It works because it offers a layperson-friendly scientific concept (residual immunity) as emotional cover. The subtext is less about immunology than about reassurance: you can miss a shot and still be fine. That is exactly the kind of half-technical language that plays well in political speech - credible enough to quote, vague enough to avoid accountability.

The kicker is the "about every 30 years" line, which folds a real phenomenon (major antigenic shifts) into a tidy, calendar-like rhythm. Politics loves round numbers. They imply predictability and control, even when the underlying reality is messy and probabilistic. In context, this does two things: it minimizes yearly urgency ("carry over") while reserving fear for rare, dramatic moments ("major change"). It's a risk-management story tailored for a public that wants science to be a weather report: mostly stable, occasionally stormy, always narratable.

The intent isn't to educate; it's to normalize a decision and preempt criticism with the language of expertise.