Not too late to get flu, COVID-19 shots before Christmas: experts

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help prevent the spread of COVID-19, guidance that matches with what aerosol scientists say about preventing airborne diseases.“The other thing really is that if you’re sick, don’t go,” Gregson said.Dr. Lynora Saxinger, an infectious disease specialist at the University of Alberta Hospital, said there were lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic that can be used in a season of heightened influenza levels.“If you’re about to go into a social situation in a smaller, enclosed space with a whole bunch of people and some of them are quite elderly or have medical compromise, you might want to rethink the space and the time for that, or spread out the visits with smaller groups over a larger time, or at least pay some attention to ventilation,” she said.Like Gregson, Saxinger said someone starting to feel like they’re coming down with something should take a rain check on the visit.“If you are going to be visiting elderly people in long term care or something, because that’s when you do that, masking remains important and people often forget hand-washing actually really does help too,” she said.While the very old and the very young tend to have weaker immune systems that are more susceptible to severe outcomes from infections, Saxinger said the H1N1 family of influenza viruses is known to produce worse for younger populations.“I just checked the hospitalized flu case breakdown by age and indeed it has flipped.