Influenza and Covid-19, winter ‘could be complicated’

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Typically, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggests that people get their flu shot by the end of October.

But the next flu season could be bad. With Covid-19 still complicating matters, experts say you may want to do it even sooner.

“Years ago we would say you should wait as long as possible to get an injection, but if you get it in the fall it should really cover you all season long,” Dr said. Claudia Hoyen, Director of Pediatric Infection Control. at the UH Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital in Cleveland. “If people have the chance to go ahead and get the flu shot, whenever they can, it’s probably good.

Based on the number of viruses she saw hitting people earlier this year, she thinks it doesn’t bode well for flu season. Hoyen Children’s Hospital has been much busier this summer than last summer, treating children for a greater mix of viruses.

“Once we all took off our masks, the viruses did what they do best and found a lot of people to run their noses at,” Hoyen said.

What the flu season will look like this year

The United States isn’t seeing much flu yet, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, but that could change soon.

To predict what kind of flu the United States should expect, experts often look to the southern hemisphere, where the flu season typically begins in June and peaks in August.

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“The story is mixed so far,” said Dr. William Schaffner, professor in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Vanderbilt University Medical Center.

Australia, with its strict pandemic restrictions on travelers entering the country, has had very low influenza activity, Schaffner said.

“But China, which has more interactions with the outside world, has had a moderate flu season,” Schaffner said.

“So we think we’ll have at least one moderate season this year.”

Children, the flu “distribution franchise”

Usually, what kicks off flu season is the start of the school year. With more kids returning to class than last year, unless the kids are wearing masks, and everyone else for that matter, there will likely be more cases, he said.

“The kids are the flu virus’ ‘franchise’. They are on top of each other and not the most hygienic adorable little ones, so they spread the flu virus among themselves,” Schaffner said. .

“When children are infected, they shed the virus for a longer period of time than adults, so it’s really the people who bring the virus into the family and spread it to neighbors and, finally, to everyone,” said Schaffner. .

The flu in numbers

In an average season, the United States sees between 9 and 45 million cases of the flu each year, according to the CDC.

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Last year was not an average season. The flu was virtually non-existent in the United States with only a few thousand cases for the entire year. A child died. For comparison, in 2019-2020, there were 199 childhood flu-related deaths and 144 the previous season.

Fortunately, the “twindemia” with a high number of influenza and Covid-19 cases that some experts had predicted for 2020 never happened.

What is different this year

What may have helped were the extra precautions people took to stop the spread of Covid-19.

Masks, good hand hygiene, limited in-person school, restricted movement and less interaction with others can help prevent Covid-19 and the spread of the flu.

As the country has reopened, protection against the flu shot therefore becomes even more essential for just about everyone.

A person can get the flu shot and get the Covid-19 shot at the same time, so if they haven’t been vaccinated against Covid-19 yet, or if they need a booster, they don’t ‘there is no real medical reason to space it out with a flu shot, Schaffner said

“If this is your chance to get both, I would say to get both,” Schaffner said. Of course, children 11 and under cannot yet be vaccinated against Covid-19.

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Flu shots are already available at pharmacies like CVS and Walgreen’s.

Additional motivation to get the flu shot

While Dr Anthony Fauci told CNN’s Anderson Cooper on Monday that the United States could return to a “degree of normalcy” by spring 2022 if the majority of the unvaccinated in this country received the Covid-19 vaccine, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases noted that getting through winter “could be complicated” by the flu.

Getting the vaccine could certainly keep those numbers to a minimum and with Covid-19 in circulation, Hoyen said people have an added incentive to get the flu shot this year.

Children under 12 still cannot get the Covid-19 vaccine, and although the disease may be milder in younger children, Hoyen said hospitals are seeing more children with Covid-19 and another virus.

“Even though we think these things aren’t important to ourselves, we should really be doing them for a child in our life so that they can get back to being a little more normal,” Hoyen said.

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