Ince You Have Influenza a Canyou Get It Again
A co-infection of COVID and the flu can be hard to notice without testing.
Sarah Tew/CNETFor the almost up-to-date news and information about the coronavirus pandemic, visit the WHO and CDC websites.
Later a 2020-2021 flu flavor that saw an unprecedented turn down in yearly cases, influenza cases have rebounded in 2021-22, spawning concerns of a COVID-xix and flu "twindemic." The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that 1,804 people were hospitalized with influenza for the week ending Jan. 8. That's most as many as who wereinfected in the entire 2020-2021 influenza season.
I difference this year is that the electric current flu vaccine seems to be a poor friction match for the dominant strain of flu. "From our lab-based studies information technology looks like a major mismatch," Scott Hensley, a microbiologist at the Academy of Pennsylvania, told CNN.
A less effective flu vaccine, combined with a lifting of lockdowns and mask mandates, could push 2021-2022 dorsum to a more than typical flu season, according to the CDC, with millions of Americans catching the influenza and tens of thousands dying from it.
What's worse than catching the influenza? An co-infection of both flu and COVID-nineteen at the same time. Wellness care professionals effectually the world accept started reporting cases of patients contracting COVID-xix and influenza simultaneously, a phenomenon dubbed "flurona" that can bring additional risks to those with underlying health issues.
Subsequently State of israel reported its showtime case of flurona on January. 2, an unvaccinated teen in California was reported on Jan. 5, per CBS Los Angeles. Since and so, additional cases accept popped upwards in Texas, Kansas, Mississippi and North Carolina.
"For generally good for you people, the combination could cause illness that keeps them home and in bed for a while, feeling pretty bad," Dr. Nancy Gin, vice president and chief quality officeholder for Kaiser Permanente Southern California, told The Orangish Canton Register. "For people with existing high-take chances medical conditions like diabetes or middle or lung affliction, the result could be access to the ICU and potentially expiry."
That'southward why getting both a influenza shot and COVID vaccine (and aCOVID booster) is important. Being infected with both respiratory ailments at the same time tin can exist "catastrophic to your immune arrangement," Dr. Adrian Burrowes, a professor of family medicine at the Academy of Primal Florida, told CNN.
Read on for everything yous need to know about the influenza and COVID-19 this twelvemonth. For more, here'southward whichflu-shot side effects y'all may experience and why epidemiologists propose taking botha COVID-xix vaccine and influenza shot.
How effective is this year'southward influenza vaccine?
Vaccine-makers monitor which flu strains are currently circulating and forecast which are most probable to become the dominant ones during the upcoming flu flavour. They use that data to produce the yearly flu vaccine, using 3 or sometimes four of the likeliest strains.
The effectiveness of the flu vaccine fluctuates greatly from twelvemonth to yr -- as low every bit 19% efficacy in the 2014-2015 season to equally high every bit 60% in 2010-2011.
Final year, when about half of US adults and children got a flu shot, the vaccine was 39% effective in preventing infection, co-ordinate to the CDC. Due to an effective vaccine and COVID-19 mitigation measures, the number of reported flu cases during the 2020-2021 season was then low it near seems like a typo: only 2,038 cases of flu, compared to 38 one thousand thousand cases reported in the 2019-2020 flavor.
Because of the unbelievably balmy flu flavor final yr, vaccine-makers had less information to use to develop this year's vaccine. They created a vaccine containing iv probable variants, known as a quadrivalent influenza vaccine, to increase the chances of nailing the ascendant strain this year.
"At that place was enough information to make a good educated guess," L.J. Tan, principal strategy officer for the Immunization Action Coalition, said in October. Dorsum then, Tan said experts were confident "we got it right."
Only more than contempo research suggests they were off the marking, as a mutated form of the Influenza A H3N2 variant, chosen 2a2, has become the dominant strain.
According to the CDC, the vast majority of flu strains detected this season so far are the 2a2 variant of Influenza A, mostly occurring in children and young adults ages 5 to 24 years erstwhile. In November, the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services reported a rapid increase in the mutated H3N2 strain at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, with 745 laboratory-confirmed cases between Oct. 6 and November 19.
If it's a bad match, why should I bother with a flu shot?
Although the vaccine appears less well matched confronting this year'due south flu, medical experts nevertheless strongly recommend the flu vaccine for anyone 6 months or older. Numerous studies accept demonstrated that even a poorly matched vaccine can greatly reduce the severity of the flu. According to the CDC, getting vaccinated for flu can reduce the risk of having to go to the doctor twoscore to 60%.
"Studies have clearly shown that seasonal influenza vaccines consistently preclude hospitalizations and deaths even in years where there are large antigenic mismatches," the authors wrote in a preprint report.
A study of pediatric influenza cases published Jan. 13 in Clinical Infectious Diseases demonstrated that even "mismatched" vaccines provide significant benefit, reducing the risk of life-threatening affliction by nearly 75%.
When should I get a flu shot?
The short respond is: At present. In the Northern Hemisphere, flu season ordinarily runs from October to May. But the influenza virus is less concerned with the calendar and more than with spreading every bit widely as possible. The timing this year could be less predictable, experts warn, given final year's balmy flu season and our changing behaviors around the COVID-19 pandemic.
Don't try to time your influenza shot for when the flu will hit. To exist ready, experts recommend, go your shot equally presently as you lot can.
"We accept a normal time when we wait the flu," said Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, a professor in the Wellness Division of Infectious Diseases at the Academy of California, San Francisco. "But this year, it could be atypical or drag on longer, and then that'due south what people demand to be prepared for."
A similar shift in the timing of a seasonal virus infection happened this summer, when the Usa and Japan saw a spike in respiratory syncytial virus infections in schoolchildren, Chin-Hong said. That's because students were existence educated remotely the winter before -- when RSV infections normally occur -- and didn't get exposed to the virus and build up immunity. That immune the virus to spread in the summer, instead.
Do I need an appointment for a flu shot?
If you're used to walking upwards to your local pharmacy, hospital or medico'due south function to go a flu shot whenever it's about convenient, you lot may detect this yr that you have to schedule an appointment, as providers struggle to treat COVID patients, maintain social distancing protocols and see the demand for COVID testing and vaccinations.
Walgreens' chief medical officeholder, Kevin Ban, recommends scheduling COVID-19 and flu vaccinations online.
"We are doing every bit much equally possible to brand it easy for people to schedule their appointments and get seamlessly vaccinated," Ban said, adding that y'all tin also call Walgreens' toll-free number to make an appointment.
A influenza vaccine can help forestall the worst symptoms of the affliction.
Sarah Tew/CNETIs information technology safe to go COVID and flu shots at the same time?
The CDC has confirmed it's safe to get a flu shot and COVID vaccination in the same sitting. (Vaccine-maker Moderna is actually working on acombination COVID-19/influenza vaccine, simply that combo won't be bachelor for some time.)
And don't worry nigh more serious side furnishings with a four-function flu vaccine: Whether the shot uses three components or four, the typicalside effects should be the same, Chin-Hong, the UCSF doc, said. Those include redness or swelling at the injection site, muscle ache, mild fever, headache and nausea, all of which should clear upwardly afterward a few days.
Want more than? We've debunkedix myths most the flu shot and explain how to tell if you lot take the flu, COVID or a common cold.
The information independent in this article is for educational and informational purposes only and is non intended as wellness or medical advice. E'er consult a physician or other qualified health provider regarding any questions you may have nearly a medical status or health objectives.
Source: https://www.cnet.com/health/covid-and-the-flu-can-you-get-both-at-the-same-time/
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