TY - JOUR T1 - Influenza vaccination may have only minimum or no effect on COVID-19 in the aged population JF - BMJ Global Health JO - BMJ Global Health DO - 10.1136/bmjgh-2022-010332 VL - 7 IS - 11 SP - e010332 AU - Lan Yao AU - J Carolyn Graff AU - Weikuan Gu AU - Dianjun Sun Y1 - 2022/11/01 UR - http://gh.bmj.com/content/7/11/e010332.abstract N2 - Summary boxInfluenza vaccination is a common practice across the world.The effect of influenza vaccination on COVID-19 reported in Nature is questionable.Data from no other countries reflect the effect of influenza vaccination on a large scale.Extensive data suggest that the COVID-19 vaccine is effective against severe COVID-19.Influenza vaccination has either minimal or no effect on severe COVID-19.Nature news and daily briefing recently reported the possibility that influenza vaccination may prevent COVID-19.1 2 The editorials were based on the preprint by Tayar and colleagues,3 which reported data on ‘a population of 30 774 healthcare workers (HCWs) in Qatar during the 2020 annual influenza vaccination campaign’. The most astonishing statement in these articles was that ‘those who got a influenza shot were 90% less likely to develop severe COVID-19 over the next few months’.As the COVID-19 pandemic enters its third year, many people wonder what researchers and healthcare workers have been doing during the last 3 years and why the effectiveness of influenza vaccination was not discovered. Many drugs, chemicals and therapies have been tested since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, including injecting patients with disinfectants or bombarding them with UV light. Therefore, the high effect of influenza vaccination as stated in one report3 is somewhat unexpected.While we should welcome the good news even though it comes late, we also checked the basis of such a claim and suggest that the findings should be interpreted with great caution.First of all, influenza vaccination is a common practice across the world, especially in developed countries. If the vaccination is highly effective in the prevention of COVID-19 infection and in reducing severe illness, data from these countries should have reflected such a situation. As such data have not been reported, the isolated report from Qatar3 may … ER -