Amid concerns about the simultaneous epidemic of the new corona and influenza, the United States is calling for both vaccines before Thanksgiving at the end of next month.
Regarding influenza, in Australia in the Southern Hemisphere, where the season is opposite to Japan and the timing of the influenza epidemic is shifted by half a year, an influenza epidemic of the same degree as before the spread of Corona occurred.
According to the Australian Department of Health, more than 225,000 people were infected with influenza in the country by the 9th of this month, and 308 people died.
By early October last year, only 550 confirmed cases and no deaths were recorded by the Ministry of Health.
In light of this situation, Ashish Jah, who serves as the new coronavirus countermeasures coordinator in the Biden administration, expressed a sense of crisis about the simultaneous epidemic this month, and said, ``I want you to go to get vaccines for both influenza and the new coronavirus. If you do, hundreds of lives will be saved every day this winter," he called for both vaccines.
In New York City, there are places where you can get both vaccines, and people are visiting to get vaccinated before Thanksgiving late next month, when people will have more opportunities to gather.
At the pharmacies we interviewed, most people were vaccinated with both influenza and new corona vaccines, and about 40% were given at the same time, and the rest were given at intervals of several weeks.
A 64-year-old man who came to receive an influenza vaccination said, ``I got the new corona vaccine a week ago.
The pharmacy owner said, ``Now more people are coming to get vaccinated than before the new corona epidemic, but I think it's because they know the effect of the vaccine.''
The US CDC = Center for Disease Control called for early vaccination on the 14th of this month, saying that ``an increase in influenza has been reported in many areas''.
According to the CDC, it is estimated that about 29 million people in the United States contracted the flu and about 28,000 died during the 2018-2019 epidemic season, before the corona hit in earnest.