Flu Vaccinations Didn't Increase Trump's COVID-19 Risk
The Claim
Influenza vaccines made Trump 36% more susceptible to contracting COVID-19 in early October.
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Emerging story
An alternative health page with over 217,000 followers has claimed that the three previous flu shots taken by US President Trump for the flu led to his increased risk of contracting coronavirus.
Other users have also claimed that the flu shot increases the risk of contraception of Covid-19 by 36%.
Users claim that receiving influenza shots leads to increased risks of other respiratory viruses. The claim was also posted on Children’s Health Defence, with almost all posts relying on a Pentagon study titled “Influenza vaccination and respiratory virus interference among Department of Defense personnel during the 2017–2018 influenza season” published in June 2020.
Misbar’s Analysis
After reviewing the reports, Misbar has found that viral interference, which underpins the Pentagon studies cited in the Instagram post by Holistic Health and More and the report by Children’s Health Defence, actually has nothing to do with COVID-19 risk. The epidemiologist and author of the paper, Greg Wolff, was quick to point out that the study of the influenza vaccination was on “the four endemic regularly circulating strains of coronavirus during the 2017-2018 influenza season, not novel coronavirus.” Misbar has found that the claim that Trump contracted COVID-19 as a result of increased risk due to flu vaccines is false. These strains existed since the 1960’s whilst COVID-19 only appeared in 2019. Essentially, the study does not apply to COVID-19 because the viral strain was not yet in existence. The epidemiologist urged that his findings are not misconstrued or interpreted as influenza vaccination posing an increased risk for contracting COVID-19.
