Both respiratory viruses, sometimes called a "twindemic,"

could overwhelm hospitals and strain resources across the nation.

Here's what you need to know.

COVID-19 and influenza spread mainly by droplets made when a sick person coughs, sneezes, or talks.

Many of their symptoms overlap, causing infectious disease experts to warn that most people won't be able to tell which illness they have.

Some common symptoms include fever, cough, shortness of breath or difficulty breathing, fatigue, sore throat, runny or stuffy nose, and muscle pain and body aches.

It's important to note that not everyone will experience all of these symptoms, and in some of cases, patients with coronavirus could be asymptomatic.

One major symptom difference with COVID-19 is the sudden loss of taste and smell.

-Primarily because with influenza, you have a general sense of loss of, perhaps, smell from having a clogged nose.

And we're sort of used to that because we've had that many times in our lives when we've had colds and we've had other upper respiratory infections.

So when we eat and we smell, we acknowledge the difference a little bit in the sense of smell and taste.

But with COVID, it's so striking that, you know,

you just smell things not at all or it's a different smell.

-People infected with the novel coronavirus can be contagious for about twice as long as those with the flu.

Those with coronavirus will usually experience symptoms beginning five to seven days after exposure.

Whereas flu patients develop symptoms within one to four days.

Coronavirus is also about 10 times more lethal than the flu.

The flu typically causes between 12,000 and 61,000 annual deaths according to the CDC.

In just over seven months, more than 210,000 Americans have died of COVID-19.

The best way to protect from both COVID-19 and the flu is to maintain a safe distance from other people, wash your hands frequently, and stay home when you're sick.

And, of course, getting your flu shot is the best way to protect yourself from the flu.

While it doesn't double as protection against COVID-19, it's critical to preventing a double epidemic.

-I would say this year is so important, more than ever, really, since we've got the twin pandemic.

The vaccination for the flu, it's been around, it's been refined.

So I would advocate for that. At least with the twin pandemic, at least we can manage that a little bit better, where COVID, we still don't have the vaccination and still just doing symptomatic treatments.

And also to Americans and our community, please be patient.

We will get through this.

We will get through this together.