COVID-19 Pandemic and the Flu Season

Fall and the flu season is almost upon us. There are plenty of warning signs for Americans:

• No national masking standard
• States reopening K-12 schools and universities
• A past record of low vaccination rates (under 50 percent) for annual flu shots
• Continued concerted efforts to discredit vaccination programs

What could possibly go wrong?

See this excerpt from the NY Times below:

Warding off a ‘twindemic’

As fall and winter approach, American public health officials are growing increasingly concerned about the possibility of a resurgence of Covid-19 paired with a severe flu season.

If large numbers of people do not take the flu shot this year — out of distrust or lack of access — it would increase the risk of a widespread outbreak and possibly overwhelm hospitals as they battle the coronavirus. Doctors believe that the flu can leave people vulnerable to a harsher case of Covid-19, and if patients were to contract both at the same time, it could be disastrous.

To prevent this nightmare scenario, the Trump administration announced yesterday that pharmacists nationwide would be allowed to administer all scheduled shots to children as young as 3, including the flu vaccine — a convenience for parents. And the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said today that it was offering flu shots offering protection from four flu strains rather than three, including a stronger-than-normal version aimed at protecting people over 65.

Flu vaccine compliance rates in the U.S. are not great. During the 2018-19 flu season, only 45.3 percent of adults over 18 got the vaccine, and skepticism continues to run high, particularly in communities of color because of longstanding distrust and experiences of discrimination in public health. American public health officials typically look to Australia’s flu season as a predictor of how the flu will play out in the U.S. Australia’s June-to-August winter recorded a 99 percent drop in flu cases compared with 2019, because lots of people got shots, social distancing was prevalent, and Australians decreased their movement.


But this year, experts say, Americans can’t put stock in the Australian experience.

“This situation is of no comfort, as these measures do not apply to the United States, where the populace has never been effectively physical distancing,” said Dr. Paul Van Buynder, a public health professor at Griffith University in Queensland, Australia. “It is likely they will have a significant influenza season this northern winter.”