Thread by @DrEricDing

HUGE— A Flu Shot Might Reduce Coronavirus Infections, Early Research Suggests

➡️Hospital workers who got flu shot vaccinated were significantly less likely to develop #COVID19 than those who did not, early study shows.
scientificamerican.com/article/a-flu-…

2) new preprint suggests that there could be another key reason to get a flu jab this year: it might reduce risk of COVID-19. flu vaccine against influenza virus may also trigger the body to produce broad infection-fighting molecules that combat the pandemic-causing coronavirus.

3) “The paper is in line with some other recent studies published in peer-reviewed journals that point to similar effects. But researchers caution the research is preliminary and needs to be bolstered by more rigorous experiments.

4) “In the new study, Mihai Netea, an infectious disease immunologist in the Netherlands, and his colleagues combed through their hospital’s databases to see if employees who got a flu shot during the 2019–2020 season were more or less likely to get infected by #COVID19.

5) “Workers who received a flu vaccine, the researchers found, were 39 percent less likely to test positive for the coronavirus as of June 1, 2020. While 2.23 percent of nonvaccinated employees tested positive, only 1.33 percent of vaccinated ones did”