No one wants to get the flu. But you really don’t want to get Covid-19 and the flu simultaneously (or one right after another).
One good way to try to protect yourself from this possibility is to get a flu shot. A flu shot will not protect you against Covid-19, and it will not protect you against every strain of flu. But your likelihood of getting the flu goes down greatly when you get a flu shot.
“The flu vaccine is always important,” said Dr. Toni Marengo, chief medical officer at Planned Parenthood of the Pacific Southwest. “We always want to prevent any communicable diseases when we can. I want to be clear that the flu vaccine will offer no protection from Covid-19. But both Covid-19 and the flu have many of the same symptoms — though Covid-19 is more severe. It would be difficult to tell the difference between the two.”
Getting a flu shot this year will mean you’re doing your part in preventing yourself and others from getting sick, and lessening the chance of compounding epidemics that could overwhelm our health care system this fall and winter.
Flu season generally starts in October, and peaks between December and February. In recent years, flu deaths have ranged from ~12,000 to ~61,000. As many as 800,000 people are hospitalized from the flu during a bad year.
While information on a Covid-19 vaccine is shifting, it is not expected to be available until early next year at the earliest.
However, you can get a flu vaccine this September.
How Effective Is It?
The flu shot’s effectiveness varies, because it’s re-formulated for the flu strains that are expected each year. It is thought to be approximately 50% effective at reducing infections, and the severity of infections, in healthy adults up to age 64. (Precise figures aren’t available because people who get mild cases of the flu typically don’t go to a doctor, and therefore are not part of the statistics.)
“Influenza will mutate every year,” Dr. Marengo said. “So we always want our frontline health care workers — and everyone— to get the flu vaccine annually. It’s very important to reduce the risk of transmission and to reduce the risk of the flu being mistaken for Covid-19. When we think someone might have Covid-19, it puts a larger burden on our public health system. We need to keep people who have symptoms at home. The more people who can stay healthy, the better!”
Who Should Get a Flu Shot?
The CDC recommends the flu shot for everyone six months and older (there are exceptions, including people who have severe allergic reactions to eggs).
“It’s important from both a health care and community health standpoint,” Dr. Marengo said. “We’ll be stocking the flu vaccine for patients at every health center, and they can get it when they come in for other types of visits. It’s a great opportunity to be able to offer it to patients, to tell them how safe it is and to remind them that this is a good thing for their overall health,” Dr. Marengo said.
“We’ll be saving patients a trip to the drugstore or wherever they might have gone to get their flu shot before. Instead, we’ll be able to offer it in all our health centers,” she said.
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You can get a flu shot at a Planned Parenthood health center near you for $25.00 when you come in for an appointment. Or, you can go to 211(https://211sandiego.org/flu) to find out where else to get your flu shot.
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