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flu vaccine helps prevent COVID?
#1
I don't know if anyone else saw this information (sorry, I don't remember source otherwise I would paste link) . . . I read an article last Sunday that showed what appeared to be a statistically significant correlation between influenza vaccination and reduced COVID cases and hospitalizations.   My question is if there might be some possible scientific cause at play here, or if this is more correlation due to people who get vaccinated potentially being more careful in their behaviors?
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#2
The CDC says that the vaccine does not prevent COVID. The CDC, however, will only make a statement when there is a lot to back it up.

I think the article you read may be referring to this analysis. It dates all the way back to October. The abstract seems to make pretty bold statements that the flu vaccine does help, but one has to read the words carefully. I am not competent to asses the blood tests that they did to make this assertion, but it seems that something like the flu vaccine had an impact on human cells that usually indicate better immune response. That doesn't necessarily mean that the vaccine helps with COVID response in the real world. It's also complicated by the fact that the study was done with cells from people that had a "BCG" vaccine and that was important. BCG is a vaccine used primarily to prevent tuberculosis. This vaccine is common in Europe and not in the US, which is a whole discussion on it's own.

They went further and analyzed statistics of a group of people that got a flu shot and those that didn't. They state "This resulted in a 2.23% incidence of COVID-19 in the non-vaccinated individuals, while the incidence of COVID-19 in influenza vaccinated individuals was 1.33%: thus, a statistically significant negative association between influenza vaccination and COVID-19 incidence of RR = 0,61 (95% CI, 0.46 - 0.82, P = 0.001) (Χ2(1, N = 10632) = 11,41, p = .0008)."

They refer to loads of other observational studies that people that get the flu vaccine are better off with respect to COVID than others. They concede that there are issues with such analysis that are hard to rule out (you mentioned one yourself).

The flu shot does reduce your chances of getting the flu. That's a good reason to consider it.
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#3
https://www.scientificamerican.com/artic...-suggests/
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#4
THanks for both of your responses!
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