With COVID-19 still spreading, Abbott warns flu season could overwhelm Texas hospitals
While the numbers of new cases and patients hospitalized with the novel coronavirus have trended downward recently in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, Gov. Greg Abbott warned Thursday that the upcoming flu season has the potential to overwhelm hospitals.
With the virus still spreading throughout Texas, Abbott urged Texans to get their flu vaccine early to protect both themselves and help keep hospital beds available.
“With a flu season that could be prolific, if that leads to greater hospitalizations — coupled with the hospitalizations that we’re seeing for COVID-19 — you can easily see how hospitals in this region as well as across Texas will be completely overrun with an inability for the hospitals to take care of the medical needs of everybody in the entire region,” Abbott said Thursday during a press conference from the UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas.
Abbott, health officials and state lawmakers were briefed Thursday morning by health care experts on the upcoming flu season and how the state can combat it amid the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak. Texas Department of State Health Services Commissioner John Hellerstedt said it will be critical to prevent the spread of both COVID-19 and the flu and test widely for both.
Robert Redfield, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, warned in late June that two respiratory, contagious viruses circulating at the same time presents a “real risk.” The CDC notes it is possible to have both the flu and COVID-19 at the same time, and recommends people 6 months and older get an annual flu vaccine.
During the 2018-19 flu season, about 62.6% of children 6 months to 17 years old received a dose of the flu vaccine, while only 45.3% of adults did, according to the CDC. Those at higher-risk of developing severe complications if they contract COVID-19, like people 65 years and older or who have underlying health conditions, also seem to be at higher risk for serious flu complications, according to the CDC.
UT Southwestern Medical Center President Daniel K. Podolsky said the state is facing “a flu season unlike any other” because of its convergence with the pandemic.
“Our future is really in our own hands, to a degree, and rests with our collective willingness to use what we know works: wearing masks, maintaining physical distances, using appropriate hand santizers and other measures,” Podolsky said, “because we have seen the downturn that you’ve noted has occurred across many areas of the state right here in North Texas. And that’s especially salient to those of us at UT Southwestern and other health care settings who see the human face of the tragedy of this pandemic when the numbers begin to rise.”
After reaching record highs throughout July, the number of hospitalizations of COVID-19 patients and new cases plateaued and began to slowly decline. However, in the past week cases have begun to rise statewide.
COVID-19 Hospitalizations over Time
Coronavirus daily hospitalization counts in Texas and the larger Trauma Service Areas, beginning April 8, 2020. Data provided by Texas Health and Human Services.
Hellerstedt said it will be critical to sustain the lower level of hospitalizations through the flu season, and Abbott warned that despite improving numbers, the virus has not left the DFW area.
“The numbers of COVID-19 are going down from an elevated level. We are not at all anywhere close to being in a safe situation of COVID-19,” Abbott said.
He pointed to small gatherings between family members and friend groups as instances that are likely to spread the virus.
“There may be this sense that if you gathering with family, you really are not going to be transmitting COVID-19 and that has been disproven right here in Dallas County,” Abbott said.
After a family gathering in June, 14 members of the Green family in Dallas tested positive for COVID-19, and one later died.
Until medications to treat COVID-19 are available, Abbott stressed that adopting best practices, like wearing a face mask, is the most effective way to slow the virus’ spread — in addition to curbing the flu.
Recent studies by Texas researchers found wearing a face mask is one of the most effective ways to prevent the transmission of COVID-19 and that local mandates have contributed to a stabilization in North Texas’ COVID cases.
Dozens of potential COVID-19 vaccines are be tested and studied, with some encouraging early results. However, experts have said it’s likely the U.S. won’t have a vaccine ready before the end of the year.
Abbott said he expects potential COVID-19 treatments will be ready before a vaccine is available, and that “it may be aggressive to say that we will have a COVID vaccine during this flu season.”
When a COVID-19 vaccine is ready for distribution, Hellerstedt said the state will be able to allocate it efficiently, pointing to the state’s approach to distributing the flu vaccine.
Personal protective equipment, like face masks and gloves, is expected to be in higher demand, due to the upcoming flu season and the opening of schools. On Tuesday, Abbott outlined the state’s efforts to secure PPE and deliver it to classrooms, including over 59 million masks. The Texas State Teachers Association said the number was only “a drop in the bucket, compared to what will be needed if schools are forced to reopen before it’s safe.”
Abbott said that one of the greatest concerns when schools begin this fall is not that COVID-19 will spread through students returning to classrooms, but that gatherings outside of schools will also increase and potentially spread the virus.
This story was originally published August 6, 2020 at 2:05 PM.
