People infected with both flu and SARS-CoV-2 are more than twice as likely to die as someone with the new coronavirus alone, emerging evidence from England has shown.

An analysis by Public Health England (PHE) of cases from January to April 2020 also found that people with the two viruses were more at risk of severe illness. Most cases of coinfection were in older people, and more than half of them died.

The data, published as a preprint on medRxiv, were released as PHE launched an expanded flu vaccination programme for England that will target 30 million people this winter.

Jonathan Van-Tam, England’s deputy chief medical officer, told a PHE media briefing, “There is now some emerging evidence which clearly suggests that coinfection with influenza and covid-19 produces bad outcomes. One of these diseases is currently vaccine preventable, and that’s the really important point.”

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