Did you hang a little extra this autumn? Has the cold lasted a little longer than usual? Perhaps you are one of those who consider a little more than before whether you should take the flu vaccine. If you are one of those who are on the fence, infection control chief Ole Kristian Losvik in Bodø believes that this year is the year to inject. Can get two viruses at the same time Now the corona numbers in Norway are low. It is about the fact that people no longer test themselves for the virus, but also that the health institutions do not have many inpatients with the virus. Nevertheless, there are many who are ill. Now the coronavirus, flu and the common cold abound at the same time. – It may be an extra point to take the flu vaccine this year because we have an extra virus in circulation. Ole Kristian Losvik, head of infection control in Bodø, says it will be a big burden for both people and society if you get both the corona and the flu wave at the same time. Photo: Privat That’s what Ole Kristian Losvik, Bodø’s municipal superintendent, says. The reason he asks people to get vaccinated is simple. It is possible to get two viruses at the same time. – We want to avoid people falling ill with both the coronavirus and the flu virus at the same time. Therefore, as many people as possible should take the flu vaccine. It will cause a lot of illness, but also demand a lot from the healthcare system, if you have two waves of both viruses at the same time. – If they coincide in time, it means that we have a lot of disease in the population that we don’t like. In addition, it will place a very large burden on the healthcare system, says Losvik. 300 vaccine doses in four hours Today Bodø municipality opened mass vaccinations in the middle of the covered pedestrian street “Glasshuset”. They vaccinate for both corona and influenza. Karin Snøve Wiik, vaccination coordinator in Bodø municipality, says that they have a lot more drop-in hours than they had expected. Karin Snøve Wiik says that far more people have come to take the flu vaccine than they had anticipated. Photo: Malin Nygård Solberg / news – There are a lot of people who have already been inside. In just four hours, they had taken close to 300 flu vaccines and 200 corona vaccines. – We are very happy that so many people are coming. Now we haven’t had so much flu in the last two seasons, so we are a little afraid that this year’s season will be a little tougher, says Vik. In addition, FHI has warned of a possible new wave of corona. If both of them arrive at the same time, she also believes that it is a great advantage that everyone is vaccinated. Several hundred people showed up for mass vaccination in Bodø on Tuesday. Photo: Malin Nygård Solberg / news – It is a great advantage that people come and get vaccinated so that as few people as possible get sick. But who should actually take the flu vaccine? Everyone over the age of 65 and anyone in a risk group with lung or heart disease or severe asthma should get vaccinated. Pregnant women should do the same. FHI: – We don’t know Preben Aavitsland is subject director and professor at the Institute of Public Health. He says that they simply do not know how the coronavirus and influenza will develop in Norway beyond the autumn. – We do not know. We think there will be a wave, but we don’t know when or how big it will be, says Aavitsland. The Institute of Public Health is warning of a possible new corona wave, and we haven’t had a proper flu season for two years. Several of us have started to get the sniffles, and Bodø municipality recommends two vaccines. They are now gathering the information they have for a risk assessment which they will publish next week. It deals with: Immunity in the population Which variants are spreading An estimate of how many have already been infected The current spread in the population. Based on this, they will assess what will happen next. This is the situation regarding the coronavirus in Norway now. It is still the omicron variant BA. 5 and sub-variants of this which dominate in Norway. And it is also not certain that one will see that one variant will dominate again throughout the world, explains the specialist director. Now FHI no longer counts the number of infected people. Instead, they emphasize mapping serious illness. This means admission to hospital, intensive care units or patients who die. – Now there are about a hundred new hospital admissions per week, ten new ones in the intensive care unit and 20 deaths per week. Nevertheless, he does not think it will be necessary to start testing again for coronavirus this autumn. – It is unlikely. We have had two huge waves this year, the winter wave in January – March and the summer wave in June – August, without the need for testing, says Aavitsland. He nevertheless reminds that the advice to people who get respiratory symptoms is to stay at home, regardless of whether they test themselves or not and regardless of what a possible test shows. But FHI will still recommend the flu vaccine. – We had little flu last season and none in the season before that. It is therefore possible that we will have a major flu epidemic this winter. – It is therefore important that the recommendation is followed. – Hope we will be healthy German doctors are now demanding that the authorities reintroduce face masks before the hospitals are overloaded with new corona cases. – Can this also happen in Norway? – It is a debate the population must have. Masks are effective to prevent infecting others. Therefore, it becomes a question of values that the population has to think about rather than a medical question, says Losvik. But the infection control chief in Bodø still points out that there are few things that threaten the situation right now. There are neither new variants nor a lot of admission to hospital. In addition, the healthcare system constantly monitors the situation. – If many people get a serious illness, you have to do a reassessment as you always do, says Losvik. Most likely, this will be a winter where colds and flu and corona go hand in hand, explains the infection control chief. – I hope we will be healthier this winter than last winter, but we are prepared that there may be higher respiratory infections than there were before 2020.
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People can get coronavirus and flu at the same time – news Nordland
