While the world continues to fight the COVID-19 pandemic, North Olympic Peninsula health departments also are gearing up for the return of the annual influenza season and encouraging residents to get vaccinated when a shot becomes available.

The flu season normally is considered to be during fall and winter, with case numbers peaking between December and February. The vaccine is expected to be widely available starting the beginning of September, according to the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The flu vaccine does not protect against COVID-19, but it lowers the possibility of being hospitalized and possibly dying from influenza, the CDC states.

Both Clallam County Health Officer Dr. Allison Unthank and Jefferson County Health Officer Dr. Tom Locke are urging Peninsula residents to get flu vaccinations to help prevent hospital systems from being overrun by both COVID-19 and influenza patients.

“We really think everyone should be vaccinated for the flu as soon as possible,” Unthank said. “The primary reason for that is we know that differentiating between the flu and COVID-19 is going to be really quite difficult.

“We want to limit the increase in health care that we know normally comes with the flu season.

“The other major reason that we want everyone to get vaccinated is because we do know that co-infections of being infected with both the flu and COVID-19 could really be quite dangerous, especially for people with underlying conditions.”

Unthank explained that, in years when the flu season has been more extreme, hospitals have been overwhelmed.

Even young people can die from the flu, she said, citing the example of a healthy man in his 40s who died of the flu in Clallam County a few years ago.

Locke agreed.

“Flu vaccinations are important every year, and like COVID-19, influenza is a killer virus,” Locke said.

“We see tens of thousands die every year from influenza, and this year is especially important.

“Having a flu season that is running parallel with the COVID-19 pandemic is going to be a lot more stress on the health care system, and we can prevent a lot of the influenza because we have a vaccine.”

The CDC states: “Everyone 6 months and older should get a flu vaccine every season with rare exceptions. Vaccination is particularly important for people who are at high risk of serious complications from influenza.”

Even with the vaccine, people should follow other disease-prevention protocols such as mask wearing, social distancing and hand washing, which help with both the spread of COVID-19 and the flu, said Unthank and Locke.

Locke said a large percentage of older and at-risk individuals routinely get the vaccine. The main concern is the large number of children and healthy adults who don’t, he said.

“Younger people and healthy adults who don’t see themselves as being at risk of flu complications — they’re the most important to vaccinate, because they’re the ones that respond to the vaccine the best,” Locke said.

“They’re the ones who get 80 to 90 percent protection from it.

“And those are the ones — especially children — who tend to spread influenza, or at least back in the day when we had in-person schooling.”

There is a misconception that getting a flu vaccine can give you the flu, and while the vaccine is made to cause an immune response that can cause a slight fever or other mild flu-like symptoms in the immediate days after receiving the vaccine, people can not contract the flu virus from the vaccine, Unthank, Locke and the CDC said.

“Where some people get confused is they sometimes feel the early symptoms of a respiratory infection, and that’s just their immune system being activated by the vaccine,” Locke said. “And that’s a good thing, that’s what we want.

“But they won’t get the full-blown illness,” he said. “In the cases that do get vaccinated and then get a full-blown illness, it’s either because they were already infected with influenza, or it can be the vaccine didn’t work for them. It’s not 100 percent effective.”

Having as many people as possible vaccinated will help reduce the spread of the virus, Locke said.

In 2018, it was estimated that between 3 percent and 11 percent of Americans had symptomatic influenza, according to the CDC. Those who are infected may be contagious from one day before symptoms appear to seven days or longer after they become sick, the CDC states.

The flu vaccine is not instantaneous. It can take about two weeks for antibodies to develop that will protect against the flu virus, the CDC states.

Even though Clallam County school districts are starting remotely this fall — districts in Jefferson County plan to use a hybrid in-person and remote learning model — it is still important for students not experiencing in-person instruction to be vaccinated, Unthank said.

“Parents need to make sure vaccinations are still apart of your child’s life, even if they’re not going to in-person schooling in the fall,” Unthank said.

Once the flu vaccine is available, patients can receive it at primary care clinics, major pharmacies and some grocery stores, as well as through county health departments.