The UK Finds COVID-19 and Flu Coinfections Produce Very Negative Outcomes

An analysis by Public Health England (PHE) of COVID-19 cases from January to April 2020 found that people with (2) viruses were more at risk of severe illness. Most cases of coinfection were in seniors, and more than half of them died, reported the BMJ on September 23, 2020.

And when combining intensive care admission or death into a composite variable, the odds of death were 6.33 times greater in people with coinfection (3.57 to 11.23) than in those with neither COVID-19 or influenza infections.

Jonathan Van-Tam, England’s deputy chief medical officer, told a PHE media briefing, “There is now some emerging evidence which clearly suggests that coinfection with influenza and COVID-19 produces bad outcomes. One of these diseases is currently vaccine-preventable, and that’s the really important point.”

The PHE updated data was published as a preprint on medRxiv on September 25, 2020.