Living in a global pandemic has not been fun. But on the bright side, if you’re careful, this just might be the year you don’t get the flu.
It’s still quite early in what’s typically flu season, but so far, numbers collected by health agencies offer encouraging news: they suggest transmission of the flu virus in Minnesota, as elsewhere, is minimal, especially compared to some years past.
Going into flu season, the threat of a combination COVID-19 plus flu “twindemic” was a major fear for public health officials: many years, the state’s hospitals are filled to the brim, a deadly illness in its own right, killing an average of 207 Minnesotans each year in recent years. With the extra strain on hospitals created by COVID-19, a major flu season could be disastrous.
So far, though, there are no signs of that. And it’s possible that COVID-19, and all the extra precautions Minnesotans are taking in response to the pandemic, could be part of the reason.
Flu transmission minimal
Since late September, when the Minnesota Department of Health started tracking flu numbers for the season, 16 Minnesotans have been hospitalized due to flu, compared to several times that at this point in some recent years.
[image_credit]Minnesota Department of Health[/image_credit]
A Centers for Disease Control map of flu activity puts Minnesota at “minimal” transmission. While there is slightly more in some states, and a moderate amount of flu in Oklahoma, it’s scant overall compared to years past.
[image_credit]Centers for Disease Control[/image_credit]
This year, the southern hemisphere had a much milder season than in years past.
“They saw their lowest level of influenza in just about a generation,” said Dr. Mark Sannes, an infectious disease physician at Park Nicollet Methodist Hospital.
Sannes said Minnesota could be on pace to seeing a similar trend, but cautioned that it’s early — the worst of the flu season often falls in February.
Similar spread
It makes sense that there would be less flu transmission, given the precautions people around the globe are taking to slow the spread of COVID-19.
COVID-19 and the flu are both respiratory viruses that chiefly spread via respiratory droplets.
“[Droplets] happen when people cough, sneeze or even just talk, so those droplets are in the air and then they can get into peoples mouths or noses,” said Dr. James Smith, a third-year U of M Medical School Family Medicine resident at the M Physicians Broadway Family Medicine Clinic.
For both viruses, that’s especially likely to happen when people are within a 6-foot distance of one another for more than a fleeting moment. This is why social distancing — staying six or more feet away from people in social settings, and wearing masks that limit the amount respiratory droplets expelled, are effective for reducing both.
It’s possible the number of people flocking to get flu shots is helping, too. This fall, pharmacists have reported significantly increased demand for flu vaccines.
Smith said it’s too early to tell how effective this year’s flu vaccine will be: it’s typically between 40 percent and 60 percent.
Another possible factor contributing to fewer flu cases so far here and elsewhere this year is that people, wary of the doctor’s office amid COVID-19, aren’t coming in with flu symptoms to get tested, meaning they wouldn’t show up in the numbers.
Staying healthy
Some of the symptoms of COVID-19 are much like flu, including fever, cough, headache, shortness of breath, fatigue, sore throat and a runny or stuffy nose. The viruses are also similar in that people who are infected with either can transmit them to others before they even have symptoms.
But in general, COVID-19 symptoms tend to come on more slowly, whereas coming down with the flu is often compared to being suddenly hit by a train.
This year, people with pretty much any symptoms of illness are being encouraged to get tested for COVID-19 because the virus is, in many cases, mild or even asymptomatic.
In addition to continuing to wear masks, socially distance and wash hands, doctors are encouraging people to get their flu shots and continue to follow public health recommendations, because this year, a lot is riding on health providers having the capacity to take care of everyone who’s sick.
“Really our concern right now is just being able to care for patients,” Smith said. “Hospitals often fill up with normal flu during the winter season, both children and adult hospitals. With extra COVID-19 numbers we have a big concern that we won’t have the space or availability.”
And when the COVID-19 vaccine becomes available to them, Sannes encouraged Minnesotans to take it.
“When you’re offered the opportunity to get one of those safe COVID-19 vaccines, you should take the opportunity,” he said.
I just tried to sign up with MNsure. I have never had insurance through MNsure before. I tried to open an account, but after fifteen minutes filling out information, MNsure says I already have an account. I don’t know my username or password. The website asks me to change my username, but I never receive the email the webpage says it sent, the three times I tried, so I can’t change it and there’s no option to retrieve it.
I find an an email from MNsure from 2016 telling me what my username is. I use that, but I don’t know my password, so MNsure sends me a link to change my password, which link sends me back to the exact same change-your-password page. Three times. Hyperloop. I have the option to answer security questions, but it seems like the answers to my security questions from four years ago have to be typed exactly like I did four years ago, caps or no caps included. Password reset fail, at least eight times.
I received an email this year from MNsure the day it opened, and then another today, the last day it’s open. Five weeks to sign up. Granted I could be more organized, but I have the sense that ACA Health Insurance might not be worth the hypertension. It is clear too, there are a lot of roadblocks, and this website is a mess, it is all very humiliating and infuriating, so it seems like MNsure doesn’t really want me to sign up – designed to drive me into the bankrupting arms of private insurance? Where, as a self-employed remodeler/builder, I receive no subsidy and no reduction for numbers of employees/scale. I have to spend $12,000 to $14,000 on insurance and deductibles before I get any meaningful coverage?
Pandemic America. 2020.
This is why universal and irrevocable national health insurance regime would save billions of dollars and tens of thousands of lives. With Medicare For All no one would have to “apply” for insurance, you would be automatically registered and covered before you were even born.
I hate to say it but it’s not someone else’s fault when a person looses or forgets their user name and/or password. These are necessary security features, and in many cases inactive accounts are cancelled or restricted by most organizations. My bank routinely requires extra verification even though I know my user name and password. It’s also not uncommon to require routine password changes, if you don’t do that, the system will lock you out. This isn’t peculiar to MNcare.
My wife, Marty, and I experienced a different upside to the Covid 19 virus. Marty went to the hospital on April 6th and spent the first night in observation status, the second night in admitted status, and she was discharged at noon on the third day to a Skilled Nursing Facility where she spent 30 days. Prior to Covid 19 a person needed to have 3 days of hospital admitted status before Medicare or our Supplemental Insurance would cover any of the Skilled Nursing Facility services. In March Medicare waived that 3 day hospital stay requirement because of the Covid 19 pandemic and that waiver saved us approximately $21,000 for that 30 day Skilled Nursing Facility stay. Medicare and our Supplemental Insurance paid all those bills except for a $19 phone bill. We were very grateful for that Medicare waiver.
A comment on the article. It was expected that precautions for the virus would also work for cold and flu. It makes sense to continue to follow social distancing and masking whenever infectious diseases are around. We should have realized already that trying to pretend infectious disease can be ignored never worked. Now we can adjust accordingly.
We should also point out the fact that this proves that masking, distancing, etc. reduces transmission of infectious disease, obviously if we’re seeing fewer flu cases, we’re also seeing fewer COVID cases than we would otherwise.