'Flurona' explained: What to expect from COVID-19 and flu co-infections
A new study shows that such cases are still extremely rare and mostly occur in relatively young, healthy patients.
Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, public health experts have worried about people getting infected with the influenza virus and SARS-CoV-2 at the same time, a disease sometimes called flurona. Now, a multi-year study of hospital patients offers some of the most comprehensive data on how frequent flurona cases are—and who seems to be getting them the most.
The study, which is not yet peer reviewed, shows that flurona cases have been happening throughout the pandemic but are so far relatively rare. Out of more than 170,000 recorded cases of COVID-19 seen in hospital data from the Mayo Clinic, just 73 were co-infected with the flu. Alabama and Georgia had the highest percentage of hospitalized COVID-19 patients with
