The impending flu season coupled with the ongoing coronavirus pandemic could make for an even greater public health challenge this winter, burdening testing capacity and hospitals, according to Johns Hopkins experts.
“These are two infections that are very similar in terms of how they present clinically, and so this may put an increased burden on our COVID-19 testing infrastructure,” said Andrew Pekosz, virologist and co-director of the Johns Hopkins Center of Excellence for Influenza Research and Surveillance.
Pekosz said some people may get a COVID-19 test when they just have the flu and others with coronavirus may not get a test because they think they have the flu instead.
“Influenza itself is a significant public health burden on the health care system every year,” Pekosz said. “So minimizing these cases will help us deal with a surge of COVID-19 cases which may be coming this coming winter.”
That’s why getting the flu vaccine is more important than ever, and distributing the vaccine in a safe way that avoids long, crowded lines will be a good test run for when a coronavirus vaccine becomes available.
“I think finding approaches and environments that are safe from a social distancing standpoint to vaccinate large numbers of people quickly, it’s absolutely an opportunity to get that right,” said Daniel Salmon, director of the Institute for Vaccine Safety at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
Despite fears of a “twindemic,” Pekosz said there are some positive signs when it comes to what we can expect for this year’s flu season.
“The southern hemisphere has just finished up its winter season and influenza was not very frequent there,” Pekosz said.
This could be due in part to ongoing social distancing, mask wearing and hand hygiene practices.
“Everything that we know reduces the spread of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, also works to inhibit influenza virus spread in the community,” Pekosz said.
It is possible to become infected with the flu and coronavirus at the same time, although the experts said there have not been large numbers of such a co-infection.
“It’s serious enough for us to really pay attention to these co-infections and monitor for them carefully as we enter the winter season,” Pekosz said.
He said a dual test that can detect both the coronavirus and the flu is currently being rolled out, but right now it’s not widely available.
Careful and clear community messaging on the benefits of getting a flu vaccine will be particularly crucial this year, Salmon said.
“It’s really important that we continue, not only to get half of the population vaccinated like every year for flu, but hopefully more,” Salmon said.
More than 34,000 Americans died from the flu during the 2018-19 season, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Coronavirus has killed 200,000.
