Calm down. It’s going to be OK.

Yes, there is a shortage of flu vaccine in the country. Yes, some localities will be rationing the vaccine to make sure people at the greatest risk of serious complications from the disease get a shot. And yes, this situation was predictable and preventable.

But no, there’s no reason for most of us to panic even though the country is short about 48 million doses of flu vaccine.

According to the Associated Press, which tracked down just who usually gets vaccinated, most people – even those generally classified as at-risk – don’t take a flu shot when it’s available.

In 2002, only 28 percent of people with chronic illnesses and 30 percent of children between the ages of 6 months and 23 months got a shot. Only 38 percent of health-care workers bothered. Senior citizens were the most likely to take the precaution. About two-thirds of those older than 65 got their shots.

Even for those who get a vaccination, studies suggest it’s only successful in preventing the flu about 52 percent of the time. For people who face serious complications, that’s a significant improvement. For the rest of us, it probably means the difference between two or three miserable days and a week of feeling bad.

The flu is serious business. In an average year, 36,000 Americans die from the disease. But from a policy standpoint, this country doesn’t take it seriously at all. The federal government spent only about $50 million in 2003 on flu research. Through the National Institutes of Health, the government spends about $25 million on researching the flu. It spends almost $80 million on anthrax, which killed five people in 2001. Anthrax, despite the low number of fatalities, sounds a lot scarier, especially because it has been used as a crude weapon.

We can get more serious about the flu, and probably save lives. We can diversify our supply – this year the country was relying on two companies – and underwrite vaccine production to encourage an adequate supply. We can also increase the resources for research.

Those reforms will take time. For now, most people should understand the risk this year doesn’t appear to be that much worse than other years, even without the full supply of vaccinations.