SAN ANTONIO — Flu vaccines are starting to become available in south Texas. With the flu season set to start amid a still-ongoing coronavirus pandemic, doctors say it rarely has been more important to get your flu shot.
If you end up with a severe case of the flu and the novel coronavirus at the same time, the results could be deadly.
"While the flu shot will not change (whether or not you get) COVID, it will potentially change the risk of getting very sick this winter. It could potentially be really bad if you got the flu and COVID at the same time," said Robert Sanders, a pediatrician and associate medical director of Pedi Express Urgent Care Center within the University Health System.
He says both the flu and coronavirus can have similar impacts on the body, including inflammation and severe illness in the lungs.
"On top of that, we've seen COVID shows a lot of inflammation both in the lungs but also other parts of the body as well," Sanders said.
In the 2018-2019 flu season, 63.6% of children up to 17 years of age received the flu vaccine. That number dropped drastically for those between 18 and 49 years old, to about 35%. Almost half of those between 50 and 64 years of age who could get the shot did, but over 68% of those 65 years and older got the shot.
Sanders says this year we need to aim for higher rates of vaccination.
"Generally, people who get the flu shot have much less severe symptoms than people who don't get the flu shot," he said.
Even though many like to believe they get the flu from the shot, Sanders says that is just not true. You may get mild flu-like symptoms, but he says that's actually a good thing.
"After you get the flu vaccine and you do develop some of those flu-like symptoms while your body is developing an immune response to the flu shot that you receive, you're not in any sort of way more at risk of getting COVID during that time," he said.
The Centers for Disease Control recommends getting only one shot this year as usual, unless it is your first time ever getting the vaccine, in which case you should consider two. Talk to your family physician to determine if that is the right path to go and to find out if insurance covers the second shot.
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