TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WTXL) — The universities are seeing about 25 to 50 cases per day in their health clinics and told ABC 27 that the last thing you want to do is get COVID-19 and the flu at the same time.
Florida State University giving out this warning to their students, faculty and staff about the rise in flu cases around the community.
Amy Magnuson, Health Center Director for FSU said they were caught off guard by the number of cases they've seen during the early start of the flu season.
"We're seeing an upwards of 25 to 45 cases per day and that's beginning to significantly increase this week," said Magnuson.
According to health officials, large crowds gathering for community events these past few weekends may have made it easy for the virus to spread around the college community.
Florida A&M University is also seeing about the same amount of flu cases coming into their testing sites.
Tanya Tatum with Florida A&M's Student Health Services explains she was also surprised about this year's numbers and says COVID-19 might be the reason why Tallahassee didn't see a large number of flu cases last year.
"It's somewhat concerning," said Tatum. "I think we're seeing much more of an outbreak than I've seen here in a long time. There's a lot of flu transmission going on. I think we really lucked out last year because everybody was taking a lot of precautions because of COVID."
With COVID-19 still present in the community, health care providers say getting both COVID-19 and the flu virus at the same time could be very dangerous as both are upper respiratory viruses.
Dr. Russell Homan of Canopy Pediatrics explained the best way to stay protected during this flu season.
"Right now if you have not gotten the flu shot, you should go out and get one because the flu is running rampant," said Hamon.
The FAMU COVID-19 testing site is open to the public and will test for both strains of the Flu and COVID-19.
