According to a recent study, the flu vaccine does not increase a person’s risk of contracting COVID-19 and is not associated with serious illness or death from the disease.
The research, which appears in the Journal of Clinical and Translational Science, reveals that the flu vaccine is the single most important way to protect people’s health this fall and winter.
Seasonal flu activity can be unpredictable and it is common for otherwise healthy people to be hospitalized each year for a critical respiratory infection.
Statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) show that during the 2019-2020 flu season in the United States, there were between 39 and 56 million cases of the disease. There were also between 18 and 26 million medical visits for influenza, which required up to 740,000 hospitalizations. Additionally, the flu may have killed up to 62,000 people in the United States.
Additionally, the study team advises people to get a flu vaccine because this may result in fewer people with other COVID-19-like illnesses attending medical offices and emergency departments.
“We have already seen the stress that COVID-19 can put on our hospitals and resources,” says Dr. Zein. “While we are still not sure how the flu season will affect susceptibility and infections to COVID-19, we strongly encourage people to get vaccinated against flu, both for their individual health and for the collective health of our systems of attention ”, he adds.
Although the findings affirm the safety and urgency of influenza vaccination, the study authors acknowledge that both the disease pathology and the burden on the health system of having concurrent SARS-CoV infections remain unclear. 2 and influenza.
