Can Covid-19 be considered the flu? This is Expert Word
Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia – Experts are trying to answer the question of when Covid-19 can be considered like the flu. According to Monica Gandhi, an infectious disease specialist at the University of California San Francisco, that era has come.
“We are all asking ‘When did Covid look like the flu’?” Gandhi told National Public Radio (NPR), Tuesday (20/9/2022). And I would say, ‘Yes we are there.’
According to him and other researchers, most people now have enough immunity to protect against serious diseases. It is obtained from vaccination, infection with Covid-19, or infection with both.
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Gandhi added all this in particular also because of the Omicron variant. This variant does not make people sick as we saw in the strain previously.
With that, he concluded, the threat of Covid-19 has decreased for most people. This means that they can live their daily lives again.
“The way you normally live with endemic seasonal influenza,” he said. But with a note, that can happen unless a more virulent variant emerges.
However, there are still many people who do not agree with this view. One of them is White House medical advisor and director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Anthony Fauci.
Can Covid-19 be considered the flu? This is Expert Word
“Sorry I do not agree. The intensity of one compared to the other is truly amazing. Fauci explained that the prospect of killing each other is absolutely staggering.
Fauci added, that Covid-19 remains a more serious public health problem than influenza. This is especially true for vulnerable groups such as the elderly, who are more likely to die from disease.
“Covid is a more serious public health problem than influenza,” he said.
