With COVID-19 illnesses straining hospitals, workers and health systems across the U.S., officials want to make sure this year’s flu season does not worsen the situation.
While everyone ages 6 months and older is regularly advised to get their flu vaccinations annually, it is more important than ever to do so this year, health leaders said in October.
“There is considerable concern as we enter the fall and winter months and the flu season that we will have that dreaded overlap of two respiratory-borne diseases,” Anthony Fauci, MD, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said during an Oct. 1 news conference hosted by the National Foundation for Infectious Disease.
As of August, about half of U.S. adults said they were very or extremely worried about being infected with COVID-19, but only about 25% said they were concerned about the flu, according to a survey released by NFID. But with an estimated 22,000 U.S. deaths during the 2019-2020 flu season alone, they should be concerned about both.
People with either flu or COVID-19 may present similar symptoms, such as fever, coughing and fatigue. The overlap of symptoms may make it a challenge to receive a timely diagnosis and early treatment for either disease.
And with flu accounting for 405,000 hospitalizations and 18 million medical visits last season, a high number of flu illnesses this year would tax the already-overwhelmed U.S. health system.
Although 68% of adults recognize that vaccination is the best preventive measure against the flu, only 59% of adults in the U.S. said they plan to get vaccinated against it this season, the NFID survey found. During the 2019-2020 flu season, 52% of people six months and older were vaccinated, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
One of the reasons for that reluctance is that some people do not think flu vaccines work. But even when the seasonal flu vaccine is not an exact match to virus strains that are circulating among people, research shows vaccination can make illnesses less severe. During the 2019-2020 flu season, vaccinations prevented more than 7.5 million illnesses, 3.7 million medical visits and 105,000 hospitalizations, CDC says.
“Is the flu vaccine perfect? No, we know that,” said William Schaffner, MD, medical director of NFID. “But (vaccinated people) are less likely to get pneumonia, you’re less likely to be hospitalized and you’re less likely to die.”
The key to preventing a “twindemic” of COVID-19 and flu is widespread vaccination, Schaffner said.
To get an idea of what the U.S. flu season will look like each year, researchers usually look to countries in the Southern Hemisphere, such as Australia and South Africa, because their flu season occurs earlier.
While the recent flu season in those countries was mild, the U.S. might not be so fortunate, according to Daniel Jernigan, MD, MPH, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases’ Influenza Division.
When flu season began in the Southern Hemisphere in April, COVID-19 mitigation was underway, with stay-at-home orders, travel restrictions and mandatory non-essential business closures in place, Jernigan noted. However, as the U.S. enters its flu season, restrictions are lifting and people are returning to work, school and other activities.
“We have to be on guard and take flu out of the equation this year by getting a vaccine,” Jernigan told The Nation’s Health.
For more information on the survey, visit www.nfid.org. To find a flu vaccination location, visit https://vaccinefinder.org.
- Copyright The Nation’s Health, American Public Health Association
