VACCINES: The flu and covid can make the winter season worse

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Why is this important?

-Recent reports show that only half of the population plans to get a flu shot.

-The impact of the flu may be greater this year as precautions for Covid disappear.

-People are fed up with vaccinations.

-An August 2021 study of racial and ethnic disparities in severe flu-related outcomes across 10 flu seasons by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed non-Hispanic Black people in every age group, and Hispanic or Latino people age 5 and older, were more likely to be hospitalized with flu than non-Hispanic white people.

-Residents can visit MyTurn.ca.gov to book a flu vaccine appointment or search for a walk-in clinic. Officials say you can receive both a flu vaccine and an updated COVID-19 booster during the same visit.

The National Foundation for Infectious Diseases and the CDC are urging people to get flu shots. Both groups say the flu is likely to come back after a two-year hiatus, and it could be a bad year.

The flu wasn’t much of a problem the last two years because of all the masking, social distancing and other things people did to protect themselves against COVID-19. But the flu hit Australia and some other countries hard during the Southern Hemisphere’s winter this year.

The CDC says the flu has already started spreading in some parts of the U.S. But officials are worried that too few people will get their flu shots, in part because of all the anti-vaccine sentiment stirred up by the pandemic.

Flu is not just a bad cold. In fact, the words just and flu should never be in the same sentence. Flu can cause mild to severe symptoms, life-threatening complications including hospitalization and death, even in children and adults.

And because the coronavirus could surge again this fall and winter, too, officials worry that a long-feared twindemic (ph) could hit the country. So officials are urging people to get both a flu shot and a new COVID booster this month to make sure they’re protected from both viruses through the winter.

An August 2021 study of racial and ethnic disparities in severe flu-related outcomes across 10 flu seasons by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed non-Hispanic Black people in every age group, and Hispanic or Latino people age 5 and older, were more likely to be hospitalized with flu than non-Hispanic white people. This study also showed that people living in high-poverty areas were at higher risk for severe outcomes from flu. This suggests that socioeconomic status may be related to higher flu-related hospitalization rates among these groups.