Tag: influenza

Minnesota health officials look to avoid ‘twindemic’ of COVID and flu

Severe flu and COVID-19 surges could tax hospitals but COVID-19 safety precautions might reduce flu cases. 

The start of flu season this fall comes with a heightened concern about a “twindemic” — a surge of COVID-19 cases amid a severe flu season.

The fear is that emergency rooms and intensive care units would be stretched to capacity, as both diseases can cause respiratory complications such as pneumonia.

A twindemic is not inevitable, given COVID-19 safety measures and a mild flu season in the southern half of the globe. Continue reading.

CDC director warns second wave of coronavirus is likely to be even more devastating

Washington Post logoEven as states move ahead with plans to reopen their economies, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned Tuesday that a second wave of the novel coronavirus will be far more dire because it is likely to coincide with the start of flu season.

“There’s a possibility that the assault of the virus on our nation next winter will actually be even more difficult than the one we just went through,” CDC Director Robert Redfield said in an interview with The Washington Post. “And when I’ve said this to others, they kind of put their head back, they don’t understand what I mean.”

“We’re going to have the flu epidemic and the coronavirus epidemic at the same time,” he said. Continue reading.

Trump campaign evangelical adviser raises furor with flu remarks

The following article by Brianna Ehley was posted on the Politico website February 6, 2018:

Texas minister Gloria Copeland, who sat on the Trump campaign’s evangelical executive advisory board, denied the country is in the midst of a severe flu outbreak in a Facebook video that went viral. | YouTube/Right Wing Watch Blog

An evangelical minister who advised President Donald Trump’s campaign sparked an uproar Tuesday by suggesting that Christian faith makes people immune from the flu.

Texas minister Gloria Copeland, who sat on the Trump campaign’s evangelical executive advisory board, denied the country is in the midst of a severe flu outbreak in a Facebook video that went viral because, “Jesus himself is our flu shot. He redeemed us from the curse of the flu.”

“We have a duck season, a deer season, but we don’t have a flu season and don’t receive it when someone threatens you with ‘everybody is getting the flu,'” Copeland added. “We’ve already had our shot: He bore our sicknesses and carried our diseases. That’s what we stand on. And by his stripes we are healed.” Continue reading “Trump campaign evangelical adviser raises furor with flu remarks”