A paper published recently in The Lancet has revealed that having both COVID-19 and flu increased the risk of a patient dying more than two-fold.

Investigators from Edinburgh University, Liverpool University, Imperial College London and Leiden University in the Netherlands evaluated over 305,000 hospitalized patients with COVID-19. Overall, 6,965 patients were noted to have had COVID-19 infection, while 227 also had the influenza virus. These patients were reported to have significantly more severe outcomes. The risk of death increased more than two-fold when people were infected by both flu and COVID-19 viruses. People who contracted both COVID-19 and influenza viruses had over four-fold higher likelihood of needing ventilation support and 2.4 times higher odds of death, than if they just contracted COVID-19.

The researchers suggest that COVID-19 patients who have been hospitalized should also undergo routine testing for flu… (The Guardian, March 27, 2022)