- The incidence of coronavirus has been growing in Russia over the past weeks, the figures have approached the values ​​of February and March. 

At the same time, mortality is still much less than it was at the beginning of 2022.

Now, on average, about 60-70 people die from COVID-19 in the country per day. 

For comparison, in mid-February 2022, the disease claimed the lives of about 700 people daily. 

Can we now say that

COVID-19 has finally approached the flu in terms of danger?

“There is no reason to compare seasonal influenza and coronavirus viruses: it’s like comparing scabies with cholera.

The only thing they have in common is that they cause disease.

In addition, unlike the flu, coronavirus is not a seasonal disease, as the entire history of the COVID-19 pandemic shows.

However, we can really say that the lethality of the coronavirus has decreased.

On the one hand, this is due to the evolution of the virus itself, which is moving towards an increase in contagiousness and a decrease in lethality.

And on the other hand, with the fact that so many people have already been ill, while many of the most vulnerable people to this disease have died.

  • Mobile influenza vaccination stations in Moscow.

  • AGN "Moscow"

In addition, in total, about 12 billion doses of vaccines against COVID-19 have already been used in the world.

At the beginning of the pandemic, SARS-CoV-2 was spreading in a completely “naive” population in the immunological sense, and now most people have at least partial immunity against this virus.

Therefore, today the disease usually occurs against the background of an immune response, albeit imperfect.

- How to combine revaccination against coronavirus with influenza vaccination, which usually starts in early autumn?

Won't double vaccination put too much stress on the immune system?

- If you spread such vaccinations for a couple of weeks, then there will be no problems.

The immune response is formed independently to different pathogens, in this case to different vaccinations, so there will be no cross-effect.

Doing different vaccinations on the same day is really not worth it.

However, after any symptoms from the first vaccination have passed, you can safely do a second vaccination.

Foreign agents constantly enter our body and it reacts to them through an immune response, this is a normal situation for us.

- How big is the risk of getting sick with both the coronavirus and the flu at the same time?

- Of course, this is possible, because the coronavirus and the flu are two different diseases, they are unrelated things.

- There is simply a point of view according to which it is difficult to become infected with another virus during an illness, since the disease leads to the production of protective interferon in the body ...

— Interferon is a general, non-specific body defense system.

But it is not at all necessary that interferon protection against one virus will work in the case of another pathogen.

In addition, this protection acts in the earliest stages of the disease.

So in general, you can get sick with different diseases in parallel, and this often happens.

- What is the principle of treatment in such cases?

There is no direct treatment for either the coronavirus or the flu.

There are no direct cures for the flu, and it is also not clear how effective drugs such as pasclovid and molnupiravir work against covid.

Almost all treatment in these cases is symptomatic, and the symptoms of these diseases are similar.

- In 2021 and 2020, the flu did not spread very actively.

But this year, Rospotrebnadzor predicts that the seasonal flu wave will begin as early as mid-autumn.

If the waves of coronavirus and flu coincide, what could it threaten us with?

- Especially nothing, just two epidemiological processes will develop in parallel independently of each other.

Accordingly, people can get sick twice - first with one disease, and then with another, or even both at the same time.

Obviously, this will have a bad effect on their condition.

  • RIA News

  • © Evgeny Odinokov

- Are there any ways, apart from PCR tests, to accurately diagnose the flu in a patient or coronavirus?

How different are the symptoms of the current forms of coronavirus from those of the flu?

Both influenza and coronavirus are respiratory viral diseases that have a fairly similar pattern of symptoms.

These are fever, headache, muscle pain, fatigue, etc. A number of symptoms of the so-called “long” covid have also been described for the coronavirus, which are not described for the flu.

At the beginning of the disease, it is impossible to distinguish coronavirus from influenza by symptoms; for this, immunological tests and PCR testing should be carried out.

There are no other methods.

- Why does the flu spread only in the autumn-winter period, while the coronavirus has become an out-of-season disease?

And is it likely that it will become seasonal over time?

— No, the coronavirus will not become a seasonal disease, because to date, the only known host of SARS-CoV-2 is a human.

And influenza is seasonal because its natural hosts are birds that live in Southeast Asia.

The influenza virus exists in their population, and its new forms are being developed on them, which then pass to humans.