When is the best time to get a flu shot? Can you get COVID-19 and the flu at the same time? Two doctors from UNC Health hold a discussion to answer the most important questions.
get here. All right. You should be able to record now. A big thank you so much. I thought I remembered that you needed to do that before. So that didn't see your tech guys on. Got it? Yes, just me by myself. Sundby. We'll give it just a couple minutes to make let folks get on filled with the new zoom rules. Do you have to admit people one at a time? Alright. No. Yeah. When I first got on there, I had to do it for spectrum because they were already on. But then you can take it off. You could just base could take it off for everybody. Yeah, but that's a new spectrum rule. As of like September 1st that you either have to use a password which is at ridiculous, or you have to use a waiting room and then allow people in. Um but we haven't had I mean, I know you've heard all the horror stories, but we haven't had any any issues with people being behaving badly. Everybody's been good with us. No surprise guests, no surprise celebrities jumping in. Not yet. Probably as soon as I say that we'll have. We'll have it happen. But good. John, I'll be honest. You in secret? Great. Once you were a 10 over, just wait one more minute and then we'll be going. What makes you Judas already? All right. I think we can get going now. Um, well, you have a little bit of talking in the beginning here. That will take us upset. Let me get this and make sure that I'm recording to hang on a second Screens. Doing some weird. Well, Michael's boat. Sorry. Well, Michael's need to be able to record Hang on a sec, see? One second. Okay, there you go. Will, you should be able to record on. Did anybody that needs the record option And it's not a able to please just let me know, and I will make that setting change for you. So thank you all for joining us is always we know you guys have a lot to cover. So thank you so much for taking time out because we think this is really interesting. Ah, and relevant. Especially going into the, um, the flu season that we're about to get into as we've already seen. Ah, some colder temperatures. So today we're gonna feature to physicians from U. N. C Health who will discuss the upcoming flu season. What to expect around that during a global pandemic? Um, and just everything that we think is going to go into it and all the things, that kind of crossover. So a sui do that just to give you a reminder on the logistics. We are recording the meeting and then assumes it's over. We will upload both an audio and a separate video file to a Dropbox account, and we'll singer those links so you can get those if you need them. Um, and we'll get those within 30 minutes of the meeting ending on. Those will be available to you and those air always, as always, a completely unedited, so you can use them as if you shot them. You're recorded them yourself. So at this point, I will turn this over to my co host, Alan Wolfe. As this is our 25th media briefing since April. Allen. Well, time flies. Thanks. Feel good morning, everybody. Thanks for joining us. Dr. Amir bars and is a family medicine physician at UNC Health. He currently oversees testing for covered 19 at the Respiratory Diagnostic Center in Chapel Hill. In addition to taking care of patients both in his practice and urgent cares. Dr Cheryl Jackson is chief division of pediatric emergency medicine and a professor of pediatrics at the U. N C Scoble Medicine. She is medical director of the pediatric emergency department, even see Medical Center in Chapel Hill, as well as medical director of the new Children's urgent care in Raleigh. Thank you both for taking time out of your day. Teoh help raise some awareness and, um, uh, provide some education about flu season. Dr. Jackson, do you want to kick it off with a few opening remarks? Sure. Welcome, everybody. Um, this is the time of year that I briefed my team and us. I usually start off with. Winter is coming. That's not just in expression for game of Thrones. It's something that we pay particular attention to in both paediatrics paediatric, emergency medicine, urgent, urgent care and emergency. Ah, medicine. Winter heralds the beginning of respiratory viral season, and with that influenza this year, it's going to be complicated by, um, Pope it and so this is the beginning of a lot of preparedness. We always hope for the best, but prepare for the worst. Um, and we're doing that in our clinics in the urgent Cares in the emergency department in the health care system to make sure that healthcare workers and patients in particular, um are safest. Could be. So ah, I will kick it over toe a mirror. Uh, let him do his introductory remarks. But I'm sure there will be a lot of questions about what we're doing to prepare for flu and this season. Thank you, Dr Jackson. It's it's always a pleasure to be able to do this and I think very well said, and very well spoken about. What were we thinking about From health care providers. This is normally a time as a primary care physician and someone who works in out patient settings, urgent care settings, inpatient settings, taking care of people who are hospitalized, what we do see an increasing number of cases of viral illnesses that could cause respiratory illness. So here we just want to make sure that everyone has the information that you need to be able to better educate the public at large, but also to be able to provide really being full inside. Hopefully and the things that we could do in my mind is a primary care physician, which is really important. This, I think, the best treatment as prevention and so hopefully giving people tips and tricks and how to be able to prevent this con committing issue that we may have with both flu season running over with what we're dealing in our current pandemic state with a Corona virus. So thanks for giving us the opportunity and looking forward to talking to everyone happy to open up to media questions. Just take yourself off mute and step right up. Hi. Good morning. This is this is Richard straddling at the News and Observer. Thanks for doing this. Can you talk about what? How Corona virus and the flu are similar and how they are different? Absolutely. Cheryl, if it's okay, I'll start. You feel free to jump in. So I think that's a very wonderful question to ask, because one that we're hearing a lot about on the ground. If you think about in principle what we think of in terms of symptoms fever, body aches, fatigue, cough, shortness of breath, runny nose headache, you can see that in both flu and the Corona virus. So I think one of the things that we're working on in terms of talking through as a medical community use what can we do to try to narrow in on some potential medical concerns that may lead us one way or the other? It's a little bit difficult to be able to do that. So I think that's one of the reasons why we're really trying to educate people on the importance of doing the things that protect you from both viruses. And so the measures that we have taken in place over the past few months to keep the people of North Carolina say, washing your hands, keeping distance, wearing a mask when you can't do those two other things that this should in theory protect you against both of these diseases. So we really are trying to make sure that we're promoting the health of our communities through that in terms of the symptoms like we mentioned here, a lot of these may be running together, so that's why it's important to touch your position when you are feeling sick to see. Could it be one could be the other one of the options on the table. Yeah, and I would just jump in that. The other thing that we can do is we do have a vaccine to prevent influenza influence A and B, and so to help mitigate the effects of potentially getting to viruses. Um, what you can do is get a flu vaccine and what we're doing here at the medical center. And I'm sure a number of primary care offices a swell assignar urgent care. It will be the ramp up our ability to offer the flu vaccine to the community. And it is super super important, um, to prevent at least one of those diseases. There's a lot of talk in the media about hopefully getting a Corona virus vaccine, but we know that yearly, Um, there are millions of people around the world and in the United States who get influenza, and it has a high mortality and morbidity morbidity associated with it. We don't know what this time what the impact of having Corona virus and possibly the flu at the same time will be, but it's really important to prevent what you can. Hi there. My name is Judith on what? CBS 17 here in Raleigh. You know, there are some companies that I have announced that they're going to be doing some combined flew in coded 19 testing. Can you get it? Cries is going to talk about your your thoughts about that, and we benefits to that. Yeah, go ahead. Yes. Um, I mean, it's obviously wonderful to be able to do one test on our multiple tests on one swab. There are companies that have announced that they will be doing that. Um, I we will also be doing, um uh, similarly, we will have tests available at the medical center that will be able to test for both influenza and Corona virus or influenza. Uh, well, influenza Corona virus and RSPB, which is a respiratory virus that impacts small Children in particular. And, um, also a test that will test for a whole a panel of respiratory pathogens as well as Corona virus. And that could be done on one swab. So it is important we try to minimize discomfort to patients when we can. It's also more efficient eso that you're not kind of coming back. Well, digital do this or did you think about that, Um So I think it's a good thing that these tests are gonna be out there and hopefully all of them had been appropriately validated as well. Yeah, just to jump on with the same kind of sentiment there is that when we first started looking at this at the very early parts of the pandemic, what we noticed is that what we were doing here at UNC Health is that we were running many of the tests that Dr Jackson just mentioned. So what we were testing for initially was flu and Horace B and then also running your coronavirus tested necessary. The we were running that on two separate tests. But we could use one specimen you can imagine as we incorporate these in tow. One test. What that does is it helps the supply chain quite a bit. So the ability to kind of streamline the impacts that we may have on the downstream effects we wanna have the ability to diagnose sufficiently open to everyone who needs it. And the more we can do to streamline that and to make it easier to get a diagnosis, the more likely we are to be able to save the necessary supplies that we have to get us through not only this week season, but then potentially afterwards if we're still dealing with Foreman Corona virus. Excited to see if their combination tests that are coming on board will do that for our regents, our supply chain, but really a big proponent of trying to minimize any harm to patients and discomfort to pick patients as much as possible. And one swab is better than two. So we're really lucky to be able to do it off one. And it is a stupid again. Oops, sorry not going to do is just another question. Is this When it comes to a hospital capacity, people are hospitalized every year of her flu, and now we have Kobe. Is there any worry or concern, um, about hospital capacities or getting an influx of people when flu season really starts to ramp up? Yeah, we can kind of talk about it from two different angles, and I'll let Dr Jackson kind of talk about what she sees in the emergency room. Don't normally during this time what we see on the outpatient and inpatient side of things that I work on is this is the time of year where we typically see an increase in volume in the hospital due to respiratory illness. So one of the reasons why this is so important for us to talk about what we can do to prevent illness like getting an immunization for the flu is because as you as you very well stated in your question, there is a limited set of resource is that you have. And so for every bed that a patient who has influence a sits in, that's one less bad that could be used for someone with an appendectomy that needs to happen, or someone with Corona virus. And you said, get care. So we are very much looking at this from a holistic point of view. We want to try to streamline the the care for patients as best as possible. We also want to provide the best resource is for them across the U. N. C health atmosphere, and that means what we can do is try to prevent cases of influenza if we can, so that we don't run into this situation where we are running into a capacity issue. We had a question from Rose Ho band. I think her last her first question X. I think you just answered. But could you The two of you talk a little bit more about how people wearing mask and practicing physical distancing for Cove? It might affect the transmission of flu as well as covered. Do we expect to see lower numbers? Maybe that actually, that is the hope. You know, one thing about this time of year is we make a lot of predictions, and then we see how it plays out. Certainly, um, the universal precautions wearing a mask wearing gloves were in gowns when we're in the hospital. Wearing I wear are designed to prevent transmission of infection in the community. Washing your hands, social distancing and wearing masks will do the same. And it absolutely will prevent or slow down the transmission of influenza as well as a corona virus and other viruses. And in fact, at the beginning of the Corona virus pandemic, um, in our at the beginning of the year, we were in the midst of ah, flu season. And, um uh and I don't know what happened. Uh, can you guys still you're fine? We can see your number than my screen just went away. But we were in the middle of flu season and flu season. Um ah, quickly rent down as wants to stay at home order went into effect. So we're very hopeful that influenza season on respiratory viral season will be mitigated if people continue to social distance where the mass wash their hands. Ah, however, if they don't, it's possible that it could be worse. So we shall see any questions from media. I've got a text question, but if you want to just step right up, go ahead. I see Richard. Well, this is Ah, this is along those lines. So if if I am wearing a mask and social distancing and washing my hands, do I still need to get a flu shot? Yeah, that's a great question. And, um, yes. And there's multiple reasons why. So what we know about giving yourself the best chance to succeed from the health care standpoint, if we were to look across the population in North Carolina, one of the things that you can do to do the best that you can to prevent diseases to take the cure that you can and thinking about what are the most available methods for prevention that are out there. And the influenza vaccine is a great preventative measure to help people from getting the flu. So, yes, while these other measures are really important, I think of them as other things that can occur downstream to protect us from disease. Start with the prevention method and try to go down the route of saying immunization is important that after immunization, you're taking kind of into your hands in your own control the ability to take care of yourself by giving yourself the best chance to succeed. And then you layer on that these other elements of wearing a mask, staying distant, washing your hands and you further increase your chances of saying safer and healthier. The other thing that I think is really important about this is when we look at people. So let's say if you were to get the flu vaccine and you ended up being that unlucky person that also got influence on top of that, your chances of having a severe illness is much less than those who did not receive the vaccine. So even in the worst case scenario, you're still helping yourself out from taking control of your health and being able to protect yourself as best as possible. So absolutely go and get your back soon's Find the best place for yourself to do that. All of our primary care sites at the U. N C health clinics or working on trying to make sure that that's done in the safest and most efficient way possible. Pharmacies were doing that to our distancing measures that we have in place make it very, very safe for people to get that scenes. So we are very much highly encouraging the continued vaccination for influenza. I would also I would also emphasize I'm not a real big sports person. But little thing I do know is that people trained long and hard to win the game. So I mean, the goal is to win the respiratory viral season. That means it comes and it goes and you did not get sex. So just like playing in a sport, whether individual or team, you're going to do everything you can to prepare to win. So to win the respiratory viral season, you need to protect yourself and that would include getting um a new influenza vaccine. You need Teoh use appropriate hygiene measures. And that would include wearing a mass, staying away from people who were sick. When you do get sick, keeping yourself indoors and not don't send your kids to school in daycare with a suspected fever. Give him Tylenol, get to work and come home, and then take him to the doctor. You've just exposed about 20 other kids. Um, so do everything you can to win the respiratory viral season. Not just one thing. It's the same as you would do if you were preparing for the big game. You're not just going to practice passing well, dribbling. You're gonna practice it all and you're gonna do it all so that you can ultimately win the respiratory viral season. We had a question of from Rose Ho Ban. Um, and Rose was asking, What are the supplies of PPE like now at you and singing in the larger medical community? Yeah, we We have been really lucky. Thank you to the state of North Carolina and the citizens for getting us to this point. I feel like our governor has done an amazing job of putting in the orders that you did whenever he did toe help us try to prepare for this. This was really hard to see in February and March when we had such supply shortages, but all the measures that were taken into effect right now keeping people out of the hospitals have allowed us to really ramp up our ability to get caught up in the supply chain. And when I say supply chain, that doesn't only mean ppd, but it also means things like testing supplies, the ability to have safe places for people to be seen, to get their chronic care etcetera. So that, I think, has been one of the best parts about this is we really are seeing the benefits of what we did early in the year. Play out now with getting our supply chains back up. It's helped the manufacturing companies across the country and across the world really catch up to the at that initial surge in demand that we have. So currently we're in a really good position to be able to have the appropriate PPE necessary to take care of patients for both, keeping the clinicians and the staff that are taking counted on safe, but also the patients and their family members safe as well. Um, this is Judith again at CBS 17. Are you guys doing anything different this year in your preparation for the flu Because of the pandemic? One different thing that we're doing we don't usually do in the emergency department is we're actually offering. We will be giving out flu vaccines when appropriate. In the emergency department, we usually refer people back to their primary care givers. But, um, this time we've made a decision that we think it is important enough to get people vaccinated that, um and looking at our numbers there enough people that show up at the emergency department unvaccinated that it makes sense. Teoh get people and capture this group when we can. So that is one thing that we're doing different. Anything else you can think of? A mere Yeah. I think a lot of what we've done in the outpatient settings to kind of prepare for covet are preparing us to do better and more efficient flu vaccinations and or care for people with respiratory illnesses. So, for example, one of the things that I think has been really helpful that we're gonna reap the benefits of this. We've really worked a lot across the entire health care system here at UNC Toe Limit, congregation of patients and things like waiting rooms and making sure that scheduled appointments are appropriately distance in space. So what we're doing is providing, I think, probably the safest environment that we've had in years, that I've worked here that give us the ability to provide the care for patients one but also to for that person who wants to come in and get their immunization for that for influenza, you could do it in a really safe manner. So I actually think that a lot of this playing into that preparation has made us better. What we've done in terms of working through the Kobe pandemic is really preparing us to do better on that influenza side of the house. Well, other things that were exploring as a health care system is just how can we dio faster and safer immunizations on larger scale? So there's discussions on how you can do that in different models, whether that be outdoor models or drive three models just thinking through what those potentials could be. We're trying to do the best that we can to meet patients and in the way that they want to receive care. And the planning I discussed has been going on for a while. So not only has the health care system been thinking since the beginning of the year about PP supplies, it's also what testing supplies would we need. What vaccine? So, uh, there have been estimates about what we would need, and these have been ordered, and we anticipate that will have, Ah, an appropriate number of testing supplies, vaccines, and then a distribution model to get it out to the public as well as our health care workers, which we also want to be safe. Can you? I don't know if Spectrum was going to say something. Um, this is Judith again. Is there one thing that people should be looking out for, like, one symptom symptom that you can know? Um, you have Covic versus of blues or any one thing that stands out. I know a lot of the symptoms are the same. Yeah, I wish I could tell you thinking. Cheryl and I think that conversations about this world were like, I wish there was that one thing that we could say, What we do know that I think it's also helpful to think of. We do have anti infective treatment options for the flu. So while we can't necessarily say this is definitely flu, where this is definitely co bit, what we do want to be able to tell patients is what can we do to prevent one versus the other? Which is why we're talking so much about immunizations. But then, too, if you do have influenza and we catch it early enough, we do have treatment options available to help shorten the duration of symptoms and all of that place and well to continuing to limit spread, but also getting people the feeling better, quicker and hopefully limiting severe disease. I wish I had that magic, you know, this is the one symptom that I would say this is 100% flu or this is 100% Kobe. But we're learning as a health care system how to how to kind of evaluate people for both as well when they know. It also emphasizes that if someone does get sick the importance of seeking care early. So, um, the treatment for influenza work much better when they're given early again. That is not to say that you should not try to prevent it by getting influenza vaccine. However, if you do, our viewer loved one, finds himself ill. Then you do need to seek care early. One of the things that has happened that I think it's been awesome in a mirror, and I were talking about the very beginning before all of you came on. The call was the ramping up of video visits. So a lot of primary care offices have video visit our Children's urgent care. We do video visits up until midnight with AH, pediatric specialists for parents that are concerned who can also help. Ah, triage. Whether or not a patient which means decides, sort and decide whether a patient needs to go to the emergency department that evening, can schedule a primary care visit or their OK to stay home. So, um, I would utilize those resources with video visits with primary care doctors with urging cares, um, to help make that decision to seek care early, and sometimes that can help mitigate the in blocks in the emergency department so we can save the emergency department for the sickest patients. And again, if you need to see the doctor and you really need to see the doctor, go see the doctor. But there are a variety of ways you can have access to your physician these days, including the video visits, including urging cares. So I would utilize those across the system as well. Well, Oh, Goodwill. Good. Well, Michael's a W unc. Just out of curiosity, this is sort of a broader question. But do you think that some of these new things that you're adopting during the pandemic prevention protocols, distribution and protection will be lasting changes in the medical community? Or, um, you know, will is this really something that is just gonna lasted a pandemic? Can I take this in here? So my great hair is not just for show. I've been around for a long time. Um, and, uh, we're also discussing with a nurse who is senior as well. I started medicine at the beginning of the HIV. Um, uh, it's coming into play in in the United States. And, um, it was at that time that the term universal precautions came in Teoh play a couple of years into the AIDS epidemic. Ah, prior to that, when I first started medical school, believe it or not, you didn't wear gloves drawing blood or starting ivy. You didn't necessarily put on gowns. And you know, certainly you use mass for surgery. Um, now, ah, 30 years later, we routinely will put on gloves Teoh, start IVs and, um and, uh, where were gowns? We now have what's called universal Pandemic precautions where we were mask and we were I wear to prevent ourselves and others from transmitting infections. And I would be shocked if we went backwards. It is actually really good infection control policy. We've always washed our hands, but there are times on, and I think it's been emphasized now two health care workers the importance of using those precautions that have actually always been in place. But I think we adhere to them more rigorously than usual. The safety practices, um, that we put in waiting rooms of of, uh uh, uh outpatient clinics, um, are just super important. And they've always been in place. To a certain extent, we've been much more rigorous about it during Kobe. It and, um I don't see any reason to go backwards tonight. Doubt that we will. You can add on a mural. No, I think that you said it exactly. Correct. I mean, I'm sitting in my office right now and I'm looking to the corner of my desk and I have five masks on the corner of my desk. If you would have told me that I would have five masks sitting in the corner of my desk where I also have a bunch of cough mass at home, multiple in my car that I use whenever I'm out and about to buy Can't distance. I wouldn't have never thought about this. And so these are all things that I think we're getting used to as a medical community because our primary job and what we do is we need to keep ourselves safe so we can do the best that we can to take care of people who need us most. And so where kind of turning in that tight. And I agree. I think it would be really hard to say Come February, all this goes away where I think we're stuck in this rut in terms of trying to make sure that We're doing everything that we can to be safe as possible for people. And this opportunity in front of us is let's do what we can to wear the protective equipment that keeps us safe. So I think we will be in this for quite some time. I really appreciate it. Cheryl's explaining what she had been through because, um, it's a valuable lesson in terms of time being experience, and I do agree that we're gonna have that same kind of notion over time. So we're gonna go ahead and our good Doctor Jackson, please. I was gonna say, If you think about it every flu season, I'm sure American attested this that I see patients said, Well, I don't know how I got sick and I would always say, You know, do you go to the grocery store? Do you go other places? So even though your usual people are usually pretty careful, you know this whole idea of not coughing into your hand and then shaking someone else's hand or coughing into your hand and then handling all the fruit in the grocery store, um is really important to preventing the spread of infection, so be having people do basic, um, protection methods like stay home when they're sick, wear a mask if they're sick. Um uh, call for cities into their elbow instead of their hand, dispose of their tissues, clean off their shopping carts. All of those things are good to help mitigate the spread of infection throughout the community community, whether it's the common cold influenza Corona virus or ah, host of other viruses that are around and will probably evolve over time. So we're out of time. But I wanted to just give one more opportunity. If there's any media that had a question and would not didn't get the opportunity to go ask us. So was there any final media question? If not, I think we will conclude today's briefing. Thank you both very much for being with us was very helpful, I think. I think our audience found that interesting. Also, to let the media know, as usual, we will upload a recording of both video and the audio two separate files, Um, as quick as we can get that out, which should be in the next 30 minutes or so, and there is always our unedited so you can use those at your discretion. And we thank you for joining us again today. And this concludes our media briefing from U. N C. Health. Thank you so much.