Why This Year ’s Flu Vaccine Will Be So Vital in the Fight Against COVID-19

While the world awaits a proven COVID-19 vaccine, medical experts are turning their attention to a shot that’s long been a key component in the public health toolbox: the flu vaccine. Experts hope this year’s flu shot can help prevent an influenza epidemic paired with another wave of coronavirus, which could overwhelm hospitals and lead to general confusion, given that it can be difficult to tell a COVID-19 infection from a case of the flu. This flu season is also something of a dress rehearsal for the eventual rollout of a COVID-19 vaccine amid the ongoing pandemic, allowing doctors, nurses and pharmacists a chance to get more people comfortable with the idea of a vaccine while also finding safe ways to inoculate people without spreading the coronavirus. “While historically it’s fine to line [people] up and put them in close quarters—often in the winter, that’s inside—that’s not what we want to do here,” says Daniel Salmon, director of the Institute for Vaccine Safety at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. “So 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.” Moreover, there are already data showing that people have mentally linked the flu shot with the coronavirus vaccine—suggesting that if public health officials can get more people to...
Source: TIME: Health - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized COVID-19 Source Type: news