AUSTIN, Texas — Gov. Greg Abbott and other health officials are urging Texans to get flu vaccines early and do everything they can to protect themselves to avoid overwhelming already-strained Texas hospitals dealing with the coronavirus pandemic.

What You Need To Know

  • Gov. Greg Abbott and other health officials are urging Texans to get flu vaccines early.

  • Ugring people to protect themselves to avoid overwhelming already-strained Texas hospitals.

  • Hospitalizations statewide from the coronavirus have decreased, but remain high.

"With a flu season that could be prolific, if that leads to greater hospitalizations, coupled with the hospitalizations they’re seeing for COVID-19, you could easily see how hospitals in this region as well as across Texas will be completely overrun with an inability for hospitals to take care of the medical needs of everybody in the entire region," Gov. Abbott said during a news conference at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas Thursday.

Hospitalizations statewide from the coronavirus have decreased since hitting record highs last month. But they still remain high, with about 8,300 Texans currently being treated as of Thursday.

Gov. Abbott says he remains hopeful that increased social distancing and mask-wearing amid the pandemic will also help slow the spread of the seasonal flu.

“The thought is, these precautions we're taking to stop COVID may also be stopping transmission of flu, so that's good,” said Catherine Troisi, an infectious disease epidemiologist at UTHealth School of Public Health in Houston.

Troisi also pushed getting vaccinated early so Texans are protected from the flu, especially if they become infected with coronavirus.

“Certainly you don't want a dual infection hitting your lungs and other organs. So it's really important, particularly this year, to get that flu vaccine,” she said.