Health Team

Fewer masks, climbing COVID cases could make flu season a 'twindemic'

While all eyes are on the growing number of COVID-19 cases, health officials are wasting no time looking ahead to the flu season, warning of a possible "twindemic."

Posted Updated

By
Leslie Moreno
, WRAL reporter

While all eyes are on the growing number of COVID-19 cases, health officials are wasting no time looking ahead to the flu season, warning of a possible "twindemic."

Infection prevention specialists at WakeMed Hospital are keeping a close eye on flu cases this year.

In 2020, there were fewer-than-average reported cases of the flu in North Carolina, but experts believe there are many indications that the coming flu season will be a tough one.

“It appears that a lot of the things we did to mitigate COVID are exceptionally good at mitigating the spread of influenza, and so we didn’t have much of a flu season last year,” said Jessica Dixon, a WakeMed infection prevention specialist.

Dixon says last year’s flu season set us up for lower immunity.

As social distancing and mask-wearing rules are more relaxed, she says the risk for transmission is even higher, especially for those who aren’t vaccinated.

“It’s reasonable to expect a lot of flu. We’re already seeing a relative explosion of other respiratory viral illnesses that we do see throughout the year just not normally as much in the summer as we are right now,” Dixon said.

Dixon says getting the flu shot is important now more than ever.

Seqirus in Holly Springs tests and manufactures flu vaccines and is preparing to distribute over 60 million flu vaccines, possibly even more, ahead of the potentially severe flu season.

“If you look at the distribution rates last year of flu vaccines, as of February of this year it was close to 194 million, so it was quite high in comparison to what we are used to, but we are preparing to make more vaccines in anticipation of higher vaccination rates and to be prepared if and when the flu does come back," Dave Sehgal, site head for Seqirus, said.

To make matters worse, Dixon says, it’ll be hard to differentiate COVID from the flu. And there is the possibility for a "twindemic" – outbreaks of both viral diseases in the same population.

“We are definitely in a position where we have set up ourselves up for the potential to have a significant flu season this year as well as you know the Delta variant of Covid because that’s really running rampant right now as well,” Dixon said.

Experts and doctors at WakeMed are encouraging patients not just to get the flu shot this year but to get it early. It's not something doctors would normally recommend but under the circumstances, patients can get the shot as early as September.

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