This Year, You Need to Get Your Flu Shot, In Light of the Risks of COVID-19

Sitting next to a doctor friend at dinner this past week, she tells me, getting serious and no-nonsense, looking me straight in the eyes: "This year, you HAVE to get your flu shot. No messing around." This woman is an adventurer, who swims across the Great South Bay with me, and is not averse to risks. But when she gets serious about this it's becaue she has seen, as a pediatrician in the Bronx, what can happen when you have a respiratory illness and contract COVID-19. "You do NOT want to have the flu and then get COVID-19," she tells me. For once, and perhaps the first time in a lifetime, I am getting my flu shot.

Then this "Flu Shot" emails arrives in my mailbox from City MD, and I'm thinking this is getting serious. (City MD was the safe, clean and non-threatening urgent care provider where I took my --ultimately negative-- test for the COVID-19 antibodies. I'd actually wished that it had turned out positive and that I had gotten it over with. My coworker and officemate, my brother, my good friend who is my neighbor all had come down with COVID-19 early, back in late February and early March, and I somehow managed to skate around it. But now with the new flu season looming and COVID-19 infections not appearing to be going away any time soon, I am listening. I hate flu shots. I had one once and it made my arm sore and my body a little achy, and I did not feel like going to the gym for days. This year I am thinking it's time.

Here is what City-MD had to say:

The difficulty, says Dr. Corey K. Smith, Department Chair, Emergency Medicine at Summit Medical Group, is that the COVID-19 pandemic is not yet under control. "The big question will be diagnosis of patients with cough and fever,” he says. "Is this flu or is this COVID-19? And in children, RSV (respiratory syncytial virus) can also cause similar symptoms."
Whichever virus you might come down with, the best way to manage the upcoming cold and flu season is to understand and follow what we know works. "The medical community puts out guidelines because diseases will be there," Dr. Smith says. "We need to be good stewards and follow them."
There is a worry that a bad flu season occurring at the same time as a rise in COVID-19 cases could overwhelm our health care system. The good news is that in the southern hemisphere where the flu season is coming to an end now, the level of infection was far less than normal because people have been following recommendations to prevent spread of COVID-19 such as socially distancing, wearing masks, and hand washing. If we do the same, perhaps we may also have far fewer infections this fall and winter.

Whether you're worried about influenza or coronavirus, the rules remain the same. "Don't underestimate the importance of handwashing," Dr. Smith says. "That alone can reduce the prevalence in the community." Anytime you are going to touch your face, have a meal, or return home, wash your hands thoroughly with soap and water. If soap and water is not available, use an alcohol-based sanitizer.