Vaccinations are, in a word, life-saving. Without vaccinations, nearly two and a half million more lives would be lost on a yearly basis, an astronomical amount in consideration to the world as we know it. Take conditions like smallpox, which have been so eradicated from the United States, thanks to the development of vaccinations, that only people serving in the military must be vaccinated against it. Polio is another such case.

With nearly 94% of all children who are between the ages of 19 months and 35 months, in the thick of toddlerhood, vaccinated against the deadly disease, polio has been fully eradicated from the United States even as it still poses a threat in other parts of the world. But polio – and the potential for your own child developing it – once struck fear into the hearts of parents all throughout the country. For many years, children became permanently disabled and even lost their lives as a consequence of contracting polio but now, thanks to the prevalence of the polio vaccination here in the United States, polio is no longer a risk.

Even conditions like measles are no longer even nearly as deadly as they once were, in the time before the widespread access to vaccinations was commonplace – at least in this country (and in many other highly developed ones all over the world). Back in the year of 2000, the measles alone claimed more than half of a million lives throughout the United States. But thanks to vaccinations, deaths caused by the measles had dropped by more than three quarters by the time that we reached the year of 2014, when less than 150,000 people died of the measles, a number that has continued to decline in the years that have ensued since.

And common illnesses like the flu can also be prevented through the widespread use of vaccinations, which are guaranteed to make even the worst of all flu seasons at least a little bit more bearable and a little bit less severe. For while the typical flu vaccine does not protect against the flu 100% of the time, any protection is certainly better than no protection. And once you have received the flu vaccine, even catching the flu is likely to lead to severe complications – and your time sick will be far reduced than if you had not gotten the vaccine.

Unfortunately, however, there are many misconceptions when it comes to the flu and the flu shot itself. For instance, many people the flu shot is not worth getting, as the flu is not all that serious of an illness to begin with. But this could not be further from the case, as the flu alone has caused more than 56,000 deaths since the year of 2010, and more than 700,000 hospitalizations – some extensive – in that same span of time. The flu kills, and can be especially deadly for the very young as well as the very old – and anyone else who is immunocompromised and not able to fight off the flu as well as your average healthy adult is able to do.

But in relation to all vaccinations, vaccine storage is critical. From the vaccine refrigerator freezer to the undercounted lab refrigerator, vaccine storage is highly regulated here in the United States, though various types of the vaccine refrigerator freezer and the like, such as other such vaccine storage refrigerators, are likely to work slightly differently from one another. For instance, your typical vaccine refrigerator freezer and other vaccine freezer or lab freezer will need to be kept from exceeding five degrees Fahrenheit. However, the typical vaccine refrigerator freezer should also be prevented from dipping beneath a low of -58 degrees Fahrenheit.

Aside from the vaccine refrigerator freezer, the typical and standard vaccine refrigerator should not be kept nearly as cold as the typical vaccine refrigerator freezer is. Instead, a lab refrigerator should be kept at around 40 degrees Fahrenheit at most and shouldn’t dip lower.