Over the past five or so years, COVID has stolen a lot of the spotlight from the flu and the run-of-the-mill cold. But both are still highly prevalent in the US. What’s more, the flu can bring about a host of other health complications—and can even be deadly in some cases.
FWIW, COVID has also helped to bring about some positive changes in terms of how we think about infectious diseases in general. “I think that our experience with COVID launched a [big] change in scientific research and data,” says Steven Lamm, MD, internist and the director of NYU Langone’s Preston Robert Tisch Center for Men’s Health. On the horizon could be more efficient and effective vaccines, AI-enabled tests, he says, and much more.
In the meantime, there are plenty of proven steps you can take to cut your risk of getting seriously sick from a cold or flu. But there are also common missteps people make when trying to treat or prevent these illnesses. Consider these common mistakes infectious disease doctors want you to avoid, and what to do instead.
1. You don’t consider the flu a worthy opponent.
“I think the biggest mistake is that people are underestimating the seriousness of influenza,” Dr. Lamm says. That, in turn, leads to a “cascade effect” of essentially making every other mistake on this list. “The reality is [people] should be scared of influenza,” he says, because it can be a potentially life-threatening illness. Dr. Lamm also points out that it’s not just long COVID—people can get “long influenza” as well. “There’s a small number of people who, for whatever reason, will have a protracted illness following influenza where they will have mental fogginess, excessive fatigue, and muscle aches for weeks,” Dr. Lamm says.
What to do instead: Knowledge is power, Dr. Lamm says. Keep tabs on reputable sources of information, and be aware that the flu can lead to other health complications. “Very few people will appreciate that there’s a much higher incidence of heart attacks and strokes following influenza,” Dr. Lamm says. Indeed, influenza raised the risk for heart attack four-fold after infection; and COVID tripled the risk for both of those events post-infection, per a recent scientific review in the Journal of the American Heart Association.
2. You think you don’t need a flu vaccine because you’ve never had the flu.
“People think that the flu vaccine prevents you from getting the flu,” Dr. Lamm says. Instead, it lowers your chances of getting the flu, as well as decreases the severity of the illness. In other words, if you’ve been vaccinated and you still get the flu, “you can feel pretty comfortable that things are going to go okay unless you are older or severely immunocompromised or you’re very sick,” he says.
