Abstract
Seasonal flu vaccination is one of the most important strategies for preventing influenza. The attitude towards flu vaccination in light of the COVID-19 pandemic has so far been studied in the literature mostly with the help of surveys and questionnaires. Whether a person chooses to be vaccinated or not during the COVID-19 pandemic, however, speaks louder than any declaration of intention. In our teaching hospital, we registered a statistically significant increase in flu vaccination coverage across all professional categories between the 2019/2020 and the 2020/2021 campaign (24.19% vs. 54.56%, p < 0.0001). A linear regression model, based on data from four previous campaigns, predicted for the 2020/2021 campaign a total flu vaccination coverage of 30.35%. A coverage of 54.46% was, instead, observed, with a statistically significant difference from the predicted value (p < 0.0001). The COVID-19 pandemic can, therefore, be considered as an incentive that significantly and dramatically increased adherence to flu vaccination among our healthcare workers.
Highlights
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Influenza’s disease burden varies from year to year, evidence clearly shows that vaccination can reduce flu severity and prevent hospitalizations—critical considerations at a time when the health care system is burdened by coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) [6]
COVID-19, should act as a great incentive for flu vaccination. Is it really so? The attitude towards flu vaccination in light of the COVID-19 pandemic has so far been studied in literature mostly with the help of surveys and questionnaires [7,8,9,10]
Summary
Is COVID-19 a Real Incentive for Flu Vaccination? Marcello Di Pumpo 1,*, Giuseppe Vetrugno 1,2, Domenico Pascucci 1 , Elettra Carini 1, Viria Beccia 3, Anna Sguera 2, Maurizio Zega 2, Marcello Pani 2, Andrea Cambieri 2, Mario Cesare Nurchis 4 , Floriana D’Ambrosio 1 , Gianfranco Damiani 1,4 and Patrizia Laurenti 1,4
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