COVID and flu season: 'It's the perfect storm brewing out there'

Gina DiPietro 0:06
Last year's flu season came at a time when people were social distancing, faithfully washing their hands and wearing masks to stop the spread of COVID-19. With online schooling and office closures also in play, the flu season was almost non existent. But with the easing of pandemic restrictions, this year could be a different story.

Dr. Charles Bregier 0:27
It is the perfect storm that's potentially brewing up there. If COVID remains bad, and it's a bad flu season, it could completely overwhelm our healthcare system in our whole country. And we could potentially not have enough ventilators or not have enough respiratory machines and not have other vital equipment that we need to take care of huge amounts of patients.

Gina DiPietro 0:49
That's Dr. Charles Bregier, Novant Health medical director of corporate health, and you're listening to Novant Health Healthy Headlines. I'm your host, Gina DiPietro. Tens of thousands of hospitalizations each year could be avoided if more people got the flu vaccine. And keeping flu patients out of the hospital is vitally important with the latest surge in COVID patients.

Dr. Charles Bregier 1:13
You know, COVID is still really strong out there. And if you get COVID, and then you get the flu, it could really be a "twindemic" as we talked a little bit about last year ... in terms of causing much more severe illness having one disease after the other, and especially in a relatively close period of time. It takes your body a while to recover from an illness.

Gina DiPietro 1:36
I was curious if someone could have flu and COVID at the same time.

Dr. Charles Bregier 1:40
You certainly can. But it's relatively uncommon to have two different viruses at the same time.

Gina DiPietro 1:45
The flu shot is recommended for anyone six months and older, with rare exceptions, A primary care physician can answer those questions or check out our latest cold and flu stories on Healthy Headlines. Here again is Dr. Bregier.

Dr. Charles Bregier 2:00
There is a variable degree of effectiveness from the flu vaccine. In a good year, it's thought to be about 60% effective. In a bad year, it's thought to be about 40% effective. We don't know if it will be closer to 60 this coming flu season or 40. Time will tell. And it's really important, I think, just as much this year as it was last year to go ahead and get your flu shot. Get it soon. If you get it in October, that gives you pretty good protection all the way through April, which is usually the end of flu season. Because, you know, flu season can start anytime after October. Most typically it doesn't start until January, February, but we have had some years where it's been bad in November and bad in December.

Gina DiPietro 2:45
Let's dive into that point he made about efficacy for just a moment. I've spent the past year and a half reading about COVID. And this fact has always stuck with me. While a vaccines' efficacy is important, what's equally as important (and in a lot of cases even moreso) is how many people get it. If a small number of people get a very effective vaccine, it's not going to make a dent in a community's disease progression. But if every single person got vaccinated, it would make a huge difference in disease burden. Bottom line: It's a community effort. That goes for flu and COVID. If you haven't been vaccinated for either, you can get both in one visit. I'll let Dr. Bregier explain.

Dr. Charles Bregier 3:28
It's fine to get them both at the same time. They are both inactivated vaccines, which means there's no "live virus" in either one of them. Not in any of the COVID vaccines that are approved or in the flu vaccines that are approved. And yes, the CDC has said it is fine to get them both at the same time. And it's kind of efficient, isn't it? You can walk into your primary care doctor's office at Novant Health and get your COVID vaccine and your flu shot.

Gina DiPietro 3:56
What would you say to a patient who said, 'Well, I got the flu vaccine so I don't need the COVID vaccine or vice versa?'

Dr. Charles Bregier 4:03
That's a great question. The COVID illness is caused by SARS-CoV2, right? It's a coronavirus. The influenza vaccine, its components are different influenza strains. So, they are really different types of viruses.

Gina DiPietro 4:18
I've heard that younger children may be even at a higher risk this flu season due to low immunity from either not having had any natural exposure or possibly not having been vaccinated in previous years. You know, schools sent kids home last year. Do you think that that is true?

Dr. Charles Bregier 4:36
It certainly is a concern in the medical community for exactly the reason you said. People have been out less, they've been getting sick less. Almost everyone that I know has not had any significant illness, other than perhaps COVID, for a year or year and a half. Natural immunity from different viruses that caue upper respiratory infections is much lower. That may translate into a more severe flu season, especially for very young children.

Gina DiPietro 5:07
Healthcare systems have been working to overcome this notion of vaccine hesitancy, right? There's so much misinformation out there. And that is part of the reason why some people have not chosen to get their COVID-19 vaccines. Do you worry this notion of vaccine hesitancy might spill over into flu shots, as well?

Dr. Charles Bregier 5:34
I think that it definitely does. People are wise to question things and to look into situations and look into the research and see what the experts say. But unfortunately, there's so much misinformation on social media. And a lot of that is propagated by people who are making really untrue allegations ... saying the vaccine is not safe. Whether it's a COVID vaccine or a flu vaccine, and they are safe. I'm trying to steer people away from the negative connotations of vaccine hesitancy. And let's talk about vaccine confidence. Building vaccine confidence for flu vaccines and for COVID vaccines. And really, when you look at all the information out there at CDC that shows how tremendously safe COVID vaccines are, and how safe flu vaccines are, and how much they reduce, you know, the death rates among our at-risk populations throughout our communities - that's what we need to focus on.

Gina DiPietro 6:32
Do you think that physicians also have opportunities to build "vaccine confidence,"as you said, as they interact with their patients?

Dr. Charles Bregier 6:39
It's an obligation as well as a privilege to try to share that information. We've all seen what happens to people who can be severely stricken by a bad case of the flu. And we can share the fact that 'Yes, I myself am very confident in the safety of the flu vaccine.' I step up, I get my flu vaccine right around October 1st. I want to get protected as quickly as we can.

Gina DiPietro 7:04
Is there anything else that we haven't touched on that you think is particularly important for people to know?

Dr. Charles Bregier 7:12
One thing I like to stress is that, you know, we are in this for the long haul. I know that we all are tired of COVID. We've been living COVID for more than a year and a half now. And we're now in the midst of this fourth surge, which is on the way to becoming the worst surge we've had yet. And the vast majority of our people in our hospitals are unvaccinated. Similarly, we have to keep our guard up regarding flu. And you know, people think, 'Oh, I just need to protect myself against COVID.' But you need...