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Coronavirus: Virologist Christian Drosten explains whether flu vaccination is still useful

Virologist Christian Drosten provides daily information about the pathogen in his podcast on the coronavirus. Image: dpa / Michael Kappeler

Does a flu shot make you more susceptible to coronaviruses? Virologist Christian Drosten answers

First the bad news: even though numerous researchers are already working feverishly, a vaccine against the coronavirus is still not approved for the public. On the other hand, it is good that you can at least get vaccinated against influenza, i.e. the classic flu – which is also rampant in Germany.

The question now is whether this is a good time to get vaccinated against influenza. Because after vaccination, flu-like symptoms can occur occasionally you feel dull, shivered or feel sick. Although the symptoms are mostly harmless and usually resolve on their own – but many people will now be unsettled, exposing her body to further strain in view of the corona position.

How dangerous is a flu shot?

In the NDR podcast “Coronavirus Update” on Wednesday with Christian Drosten from Charité Berlin, listeners also asked the virologist:

Does it really make sense to get flu now? if you are more susceptible to Covid-19 infection after vaccination?

“It’s not like you’re more susceptible to viruses after an influenza vaccination,” Drosten said in the podcast. “It’s just not true.”

The virologist further explains that one often does not want to vaccinate into an existing virus infection. However, this is not because the vaccination is not well tolerated – but that some fabrics would simply not work so well. So, for example, if you are currently ill due to a viral infection, your doctor would actually advise against vaccination until you are well, because it will work better.

At the end of the season, it also makes sense to get vaccinated against flu

Having a vaccination now, by the way, has the advantage, according to Drosten, that you can prepare for the next disease season in the fall: above all, if the flu and corona occur again in parallel, be with a flu shot now and again in autumn “in a good start”. In the previous podcast episode on Tuesday, Drosten already emphasized that an influenza vaccination can benefit from particularly good efficacy now and in autumn.

However, he also warns that vaccinations are not the panacea against the coronavirus: “There is not necessarily a requirement here, I have to be vaccinated and then I did something to interrupt this acute problem that we now have in our society.”

Towards the end of the podcast, he advocates taking non-medical measures instead of continuing to talk about medications and vaccines against the coronavirus that are not yet available. In this sense, Drosten advises above all to do everything necessary to slow the spread of the virus. This is intended primarily to protect risk groups such as the elderly and the weakened.

Social life does not have to be blocked for this. According to Drosten, we should cancel “unnecessary” events and try to compensate for the costs incurred: “The damage we’re going to have from a rapidly spreading epidemic over the next few months will be much greater.”

(ak)

Virologist: “Maximum cases will probably occur from June to August”

Not only Donald Trump has assumed so far: the spread of the corona virus could weaken if it gets warmer. The virologist Christian Drosten from the Berlin Charité was of the same opinion.

But that has changed in the meantime. In the Monday edition of the NDR podcast “Coronavirus Update”, he explains why Drosten does not expect the virus spread to slow down in warmer temperatures.

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