Allen County Health Commissioner Dr. Matthew Sutter says the upcoming flu season could be worse because of COVID-19, saying "We now have two dangerous respiratory viruses circulating.
It could be a much worse season because of that."
In full covid-19 protection.
Flu season is right around the corner and dealing with covid-19 at the same time could potentially make this season tough.
Fox 55's caleb saylor is live in fort wayne with more on what health officials are saying about what we might see with the upcoming flu season.
Caleb?
Covid-19 isn't going away anytime soon and flu season is coming soon.
Health officials say covid-19 could make the flu season worse, but you can help to make it less severe.
Every year, influenza comes back to affect our communities.
Preparing for flu season can be difficult.
Some years the influenza strains are mild, other years they're severe.allen county health commissioner matthew sutter says we can look to the southern hemisphere flu season happening now to get an idea of how ours will go.sot: matthew sutter, m.d., health commissioner, allen county?
"so far, the information from the southern hemisphere is that they had a relatively mild flu season.
So, that would be encouraging, that maybe this could be a milder flu season.
However, we can't take that for granted because while that tends to follow, it's not always the case."it's not always the case because influenza changes quickly, so the strains we see here could be different.
This year, we have to account for covid-19 "we now have two dangerous respiratory viruses circulating.
It could be a much worse season because of that."it could be much worse because of compounding symptoms will take an extra harsh toll on the body.to try to stop yourself from getting the flu, you're encouraged to get your vaccine.
Connie heflin with supershot says the sooner the better.
"you want to typically get your flu immunizations by the end of october, but at least by thanksgiving because it takes about two weeks for your body to build up the immunity against the flu.
So, you really just want to get protected before it's really circulating in the community."
Heflin and sutter say that the cdc have ramped up flu vaccine production, so there should be plenty for the upcoming season, and sutter says we can lessen the effects of the flu by doing what we're doing right now.
"the good news is the things we do to control covid-19 are the same things that control the flu.
So, flu is a respiratory virus, just like covid-19, so wearing masks, social distancing, good hand-washing, staying home when you're sick are all really helpful things to limit the flu season just the way it limits covid-19."
Heflin says supershot will have the flu vaccines in their clinic this vaccines in have the flu supershot will heflin says heflin says supershot will have the flu vaccines in their clinic this week and some big box pharmacies already have some supply, but we won't know the effectiveness of the vaccine until well into the season.
To learn more about similar and different symptoms between influenza and covid-19, find this story on our website, w- f-f-t dot com.in fort wayne, caleb saylor fox 55 news.
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