Shout out to Dr. Angela Rasmussen, a virologist from the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization at the University of Saskatchewan in Canada. She took to Twitter to demystify the rhetoric about ‘flurona’, an alleged combination of influenza and coronavirus. Spoiler alert: it isn’t a combination at all. The following quote comes from the first three tweets in a thread she wrote:
Stop this “flurona” BS. Co-infections of circulating respiratory viruses happen all the time. Co-infections of influenza and SARS-CoV-2 were reported in early 2020. This is almost certainly not the first time this has occurred in LA or anywhere.
This is NOT a “hybrid” virus or a combination of influenza and SARS-CoV-2. Influenza is a negative-sense, segmented RNA virus. SARS-CoV-2 is a positive sense, nonsegmented RNA virus. They are biologically incapable of making a “combination” virus.
Even if there were recombination of the viral genomes, it would most likely be either a very small portion of the genome or it would result in a non-functional recombinant virus.
I recommend you read the full thread on Twitter if you can. It’s info like this that we need rather than commercials showing celebrities saying ‘get vaccinated’ or the spread of ‘why are people getting the virus if they’re vaccinated?’ hysteria with no explanations from anyone about what vaccines do.
Stay safe, wear your masks, wash your hands, and stay home if you have symptoms!