• 12-17-2021 Media Only News Briefing: Flu season has arrived as COVID-19 surge continues

On Friday, December 17th, Abinash Virk, M.D., a Mayo Clinic infectious disease expert and Matthew Binnicker, Ph.D., director of Mayo Clinic’s Clinical Virology Laboratory, discussed this years flu season. They also accressed how people can tell the difference between COVID-19 and the flu and why getting tested is going to be especially important this winter.

Journalists who have already registered on the News Network can log into their accounts to download a recording of the Zoom briefing found at the end of this post.

Journalists who would like to access the media briefing video can register with the News Network here.


For the safety of its patients, staff and visitors, Mayo Clinic has strict masking policies in place. Anyone shown without a mask was either recorded prior to COVID-19 or recorded in a nonpatient care area where social distancing and other safety protocols were followed.

Information in this post was accurate at the time of its posting. Due to the fluid nature of the COVID-19 pandemic, scientific understanding, along with guidelines and recommendations, may have changed since the original publication date

For more information and all your COVID-19 coverage, go to the Mayo Clinic News Network and mayoclinic.org.

Learn more about tracking COVID-19 and COVID-19 trends.

Dec. 19, 2021 - Mayo Clinic COVID-19 trending map using red color tones for hot spotscoronavirus-covid-19-map-2021-12-09-16X9
https://www.mayoclinic.org/coronavirus-covid-19/map