Is It Possible To Get The Flu And COVID-19 At The Same Time?

In the spring, and from the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, health officials had warned that there was a chance that people could get both COVID-19 and the flu at the same time. Fast forward to late October, and health officials in Solano County, California confirmed that they had seen both infections in one patient for the first time since this fall's flu season began. The patient was not identified, but The Independent reports she was over 20 years of age, worked in the healthcare sector, and has recovered. 

The news is particularly worrisome because the number of COVID cases around the country is rising. In addressing the double infection, Solano County health official Bela Matyas says: "This is a very clear indication of the potential for this to occur. We now have flu in our community at the same time we have COVID... contracting either disease may weaken your immune system and make you more susceptible to the other disease."

Cases of both COVID-19 and flu are rare

While doctors have been warning about the potential for getting sick with both the coronavirus and the flu, the number of cases involving a double infection is still is very low. University of California, San Francisco professor of medicine and infectious disease specialist Peter Chin-Hong tells NBC that whether these double infections become more commonplace "depends on what the flu season is going to look like. There's nothing that would preclude co-infection. It's not like COVID comes in and takes out all the flu."

This may all sound a bit daunting, but experts like George Mason University professor of Global Health and Epidemiology Amira A. Roess says we're not in the same place we were when the pandemic first broke out in the beginning of the year. "Since March we are better at understanding what supportive treatments are helpful for certain patients [who have COVID]. There are medications that are now used to treat COVID-19 patients under FDA EUA, but more work is needed to identify effective medications and treatments for COVID-19," Dr. Roess says (via Pop Sugar).

Catching the flu and/or COVID is not inevitable

But we shouldn't accept that getting sick with either COVID or the flu (or getting both) is something that can happen to all of us. In fact, the CDC's recommendations for stopping the spread of flu might look familiar because they are nearly identical to those they've been telling us about staying healthy amid a COVID-19 pandemic. Wash your hands with soap and water regularly, and that's not available to you, use hand sanitizer. Clean and disinfect high touch surfaces that might be germy. Cover your nose and mouth when you cough or sneeze (and this is when a mask comes in handy). Most importantly, get your flu shot this year.

"Even if you do get sick, flu vaccination can reduce severity and duration of illnesses, and importantly, can help keep you out of the hospital," pandemic guru Dr. Anthony Fauci has said. Because we're already seeing a massive uptick in the number of COVID-19 cases, its important to at least manage the flu part of the sickness equation. Dr. Fauci also wants us to remember that influenza, in and of itself, "is a serious disease; it is not trivial. Let's do what we can with the tools that we have, and we have a good tool in an influenza vaccine" (via Healthline).