Previous research has demonstrated a link between flu shots (influenza vaccination) and an increased risk of being infected with a coronavirus.
The speculation of vaccines paradoxically increasing the risk of infections possibly originated first following 2009 influenza A (H1N1pdm09) pandemic when four Canadian studies suggested that receipt of seasonal influenza vaccine increased the risk of laboratory-confirmed 2009 pandemic influenza A (H1N1pdm09) virus infection [1]. This led to five additional studies, each of which substantiated these initial findings.
SARS-CoV2-2 is different,but it's still a coronavirus. Does a flu shot increase the risk of infection for SARS-CoV-2? According to some people, previous studies on other coronaviruses have no bearing on coronavirus-19. Go figure. They want to avoid any anti-vaccination mindsets so they say things like (since vaccine hesitancy is a grave problem according to the WHO):
coronavirus results in this study represented the four endemic, regularly circulating strains of coronavirus (229E, NL63, OC43, and HKU1) during the 20172018 influenza season, not novel corona-virus (COVID-19)
the results of this study cannot and should not be interpreted to represent any sort of relationship or association of influenza vaccination receipt and COVID-19 illness. Results from this study DO NOT support the anti-vaccination viewpoint of avoiding seasonal influenza vaccination, and in fact should be interpreted in the opposite manner, since significant protection against influenza was associated with vaccination receipt, and a slight decrease in the odds of infection from other respiratory viruses was also noted.
That doesn't mean the flu shot doesn't affect the risk of infection from SARS-CoV-2. God forbid anyone stop taking a flu shot that is only 10% effective anyways... lol.
A new study looked at flu shots and not just covid-19 infection, but covid-19 deaths. It's titled "Positive association between COVID-19 deaths and influenza vaccination rates in elderly people worldwide".
Correlation isn't causation, but it's a signal to look closer to see if there is a causal factor. There is a strong correlation between more deaths as more of a population received flu shots.
To determine the association between COVID-19 deaths and influenza vaccination, available data sets from countries with more than 0.5 million inhabitants were analyzed (in total 39 countries).
The study also took into account confounding variables and weighted them to try to minimize influence in the results.
The results showed a positive association between COVID-19 deaths and IVR of people ≥65 years-old. There is a significant increase in COVID-19 deaths from eastern to western regions in the world. Further exploration is needed to explain these findings, and additional work on this line of research may lead to prevention of deaths associated with COVID-19.
The results were stronger in European countries.
For the 26 European countries considered, the results indicated that COVID-19 DPMI and the COVID-19 CFR were positively and statistically significantly associated with IVR in people ≥65 years-old in 2019 or latest data available
Figure 1: Association of COVID-19 deaths per million inhabitants (DPMI) up to July 25, 2020 with influenza vaccination rate (IVR) of people aged 65 and older in 2019 or latest data available in Europe.
Figure 2: Association of COVID-19 Case Fatality Ratio (CFR) up to July 25, 2020 with influenza vaccination rate (IVR) of people aged 65 and older in 2019 or latest data available in Europe.
At worldwide level (39 countries studied), the positive associations between DPMI and IVR were also statistically significant (rs (IVR × DPMI) = +0.49 with p = 0.0016, Rs2 (IVR × DPMI) = 0.24) (Fig. 3; Table 5). However, the relationships between IVR and CFR were not statistically significant.
Figure 3: Association of COVID-19 deaths per million inhabitants (DPMI) up to July 25, 2020 with influenza vaccination rate of people aged 65 and older in 2019 or latest data available worldwide.
Given the positive relationship between IVR and the number of deaths per million found in this study, further exploration would be valuable to explain these findings and to make conclusions
Yes, further study would be valuable to have and figure out if there is anything between flu shots and covid-19 deaths. I hope someone does further study this.