Last year, the flu season was relatively mild across the United States thanks to COVID-19 mitigation efforts that included wearing masks, social distancing and washing hands often.
Dr. Dale Bratzler, OU’s Chief COVID-19 officer, says flu season could be worse this year because many people haven’t been exposed to the most recent variant of the influenza virus.
"One of the big concerns that most of us have is, if we go back to not wearing masks and not doing good hand hygiene and social distancing, and we have a flu outbreak then it will spread just like we saw with Delta," said Bratzler.
He says this could be a big concern as hospitals are already at full capacity dealing with the coronavirus pandemic. He advises to keep wearing masks during the holiday season and to get a flu shot as well.
The CDC says it is safe for people to take the flu shot and the COVID-19 vaccine at the same time.
