Simultaneous infections of COVID and the flu have been sprouting up.

As the temperature drops, yearly seasonal diseases once again rear their heads. Unfortunately, due to general vaccine hesitancy, instances of the yearly flu are slightly higher than usual, and with COVID-19 still surging around the world, diseases have begun comingling. This has lead to several isolated instances around the United States of “flurona,” a hybrid term intended to refer to one who tests positive for both COVID-19 and the seasonal flu.

While the notion of having two diseases simultaneously is concerning, medical experts have assured that simultaneous infections do not constitute a new variant. People have been testing positive for simultaneous infections of COVID and the flu for as long as COVID has existed, and as far as studies have determined, the diseases don’t seem to play off each other in any notable capacity. That’s not to say having two infections isn’t potentially hazardous, but merely that the presence of one doesn’t magnify the other.

“Both are common, so it is not unexpected that some people would be infected at the same time,” Dr. Dan Barouch, director of the Center for Virology and Vaccine Research at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, said in a statement.

“It has not been a big issue for us because of the low levels of influenza circulating in the community,” Dr. Jonathan Grein, director of Hospital Epidemiology at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, said in a separate statement. “It’s obviously not good to be infected with two viruses rather than one, but there’s no clear indication that this is a particularly bad combination.”

As flu season continues, the likelihood of dual infections will likely rise and eventually fall. As has always been the case, experts recommend getting vaccinated for both COVID-19 and the yearly flu to lessen the odds of any infection, simultaneous ones included.