What can Covid-19 and the flu do to your body together

09/11/2020 Health


“You can get both Flu and Covid-19 at the same time, which can be devastating to your immune system,” said Dr. Adrian Broise, a family medicine physician in Florida.

In fact, infecting one can make you susceptible to the disease, says epidemiologist Dr. Seema said to Yasmin.

“Once you become infected with the flu and some other respiratory viruses, it weakens your body,” said Yasmin, director of the Stanford Health Communication Initiative.

“Your defenses go down, and that makes you susceptible to another infection on top.”

On their own, Covid-19 and the flu can both attack the lungs, potentially causing pneumonia, fluid in the lungs or respiratory failure, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.
Each disease can also cause sepsis, cardiac injury, and inflammation of the heart, brain, or muscle tissue.

Professor of Medicine and Critical Care Specialist at the University of California, San Francisco.

But, it’s too early to know how bad a double whammy can be, each of its viruses comparing to it.

That’s because Covid-19 didn’t spread to the U.S. until the end of the last flu season, Matt said. So there is not much data yet on people who get both diseases at the same time.

Half a million children in the U.S. have been diagnosed with Covid-19

But Matt Thene suspects that pneumonia is more likely to occur if the body is infected with both the flu and coronavirus.

“Both (viruses) together can cause more damage to the lungs and cause respiratory failure,” he said.

Respiratory failure does not mean that your lungs stop working. This means that the lungs do not get enough oxygen in the blood.

“Acute respiratory failure can be a fatal crisis,” says the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute. “Respiratory failure can damage your lungs and other organs, so it’s important to seek treatment quickly.”

How do I tell if I have Covid-19 or the flu (or both)?

“The symptoms of influenza and covid-19 are very similar, so it is difficult to distinguish between the two,” said Rhode Island Hospital Medical Director of Epidemiology and Infection Control. Said Leonard Marmel.

Both the flu and Covid-19 can give you a fever, cough, shortness of breath, fatigue, sore throat, body aches and a runny or stuffy nose, the CDC said.
So your child has the Covid-19 symptom. What are you doing now

“Some people may have laryngitis and diarrhea, although this is more common in children than in adults,” the CDC said.

But unlike the flu, Covid-19 can cause loss of taste or smell.
And almost all coronavirus infections occur in people who show no symptoms. (Many of those people are pre-characteristic and more contagious Before They start showing symptoms.)

So the best way to find out if you have a novel coronavirus or flu (or both) is to test.

The CDC has developed a test that will test both viruses, which will be used in CDC-supported public health laboratories. The agency said it continues to produce and distribute these tests.

How can I avoid this flu-covid-19 double whammy?

Wear a mask and keep a physical distance. Health officials have stressed the importance of masks and body spacing if Americans want to control Covid-19 – and Get the economy back on track.

With the imminent flu season, such precautions “can double protect us from both viruses,” Yasmin said.

In the Southern Hemisphere, which is ending the winter months and the flu season, surprisingly low flu cases have been reported in many countries as people wear masks and social distances.
If you socialize closely on Labor Day, test for Covid-19, says Dr. Birks.
Australia In Australia, for example, the number of lab-confirmed flu cases dropped from 61,000 in August 2019 to 107 this August.

But the U.S. In, some people are getting lazy about wearing masks and social distance. And that’s a big problem, “said Dr. Ginny Marazzo, director of the Department of Infectious Diseases at the University of Alabama in Birmingham.

She said there could be a whole whirlwind of Covid-19 activity entering, as people gather more – especially – as they become more and more tired of wearing masks, social distance and hand hygiene, and as they are seasonal influenza. Exposure. “

Get the flu vaccine. This would seem obvious. Yet, almost all Americans are not vaccinated against the flu, including most children who die from the flu.
Even if you get a flu shot and then catch the flu, the symptoms are usually less severe than if you haven’t had a flu vaccine.

And yet no Covid-19 vaccine is publicly available, the flu shot is the only way you can inoculate yourself against both viruses at once.

Pediatrician: It's time for all schools to take flu shots
Pediatricians say it is important for children 6 months and older to get the flu vaccine, ideally before the end of October. “Timely influenza vaccination is especially important,” the American Academy of Pediatrics wrote this week.

The president of the American Medical Association, immunologist Dr. Susan Bailey said getting a flu shot helps more people than just herself.

“Hospitals and doctors’ offices will be very busy caring for Kovid-19 patients, so the flu vaccine can help reduce the burden on the health care system and ensure that those in need of medical care can get it.” .

About 140,000 to 810,000 Americans are hospitalized with the flu each year, according to the CDC. The number of hospital admissions to Covid-19 is expected to increase by more than 150% between now and December 1, according to the University of Health Matrix and Evaluation University in Washington.

“Every year, many patients develop acute influenza with respiratory failure,” Matthew said. In patients with severe pneumonia from the flu, “most patients did not get their flu vaccine that year.”

CNN’s Amanda Watts, Jane Rose Smith, John Bonifield, Jacqueline Howard and Elizabeth Cohen contributed to this report.

.

Tags

Designed by Tricksfast Solutions
© Copyright 2024, All Rights Reserved