Mayo Clinic urges flu shots among rising Covid cases

(ABC 6 News) – Flu season is just around the corner and cases of COVID-19 increasing, experts at Mayo Clinic say it’s time to schedule your flu shot.

Both viruses cause respiratory illness, often leading to mild to severe or life-threatening symptoms in children and adults. People should be vaccinated against both Covid-19 and the flu.

Last year because of the pandemic, fewer flu cases were seen because of taking precautions like social distancing and wearing face masks.

But ahead of this flu season, those at Mayo Clinic say it is important to get your flu vaccine because sometimes you just don’t have the symptoms for either illness.

"People can be completely asymptomatic with Covid and never know they had it and the same thing can happen with influenza. There is also the pre-symptomatic phase for people who do get symptoms of covid and are infectious for 48 hours before the onset of symptoms with influenza. It’s about 24 hours for the prior onset of symptoms and these are rough figures that are roughly the time range," Dr. Priya Sampathkumar, Mayo Clinic infectious diseases expert said.

Individuals can get the flu vaccine and covid vaccine at the same time. It takes two weeks for the flu vaccine to be completely in effect.