COVID-19 or influenza? How you can access free flu testing

Lewis Phillips is 23, young, fit and has experienced COVID-19, but he is amongst a growing number of Australians ending up in hospital due to influenza this season.

"Definitely the most aggressive flu I've ever had," he told A Current Affair.

"Within half an hour I went from: 'I hope I can play footy, to … 'I hope I don't die'."

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Australian hospitals are being swamped with victims of this year's severe flu strain and as a result, state governments are handing out free flu shots.

Head of infectious diseases at Canberra Hospital Peter Collignon said all indications show Australia is in for a bad winter.

"Currently we're seeing more cases than we would normally expect to see at this time of year," Collignon said.

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"In the hospital I work at, when we have people coming in now, we test them often for RSV, influenza and COVID because there's different therapy needed for those diseases and also you don't want to put people together who have got different infections."

To try and identify the growing number of flu cases this year, COVID-19 testing centres are now adding flu testing to swab samples.

"We've got this infrastructure, we've got the processes in place, let's include these extra viruses into our panel," Greg Grainger from Histopath pathology said.

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With the sudden alarming rise in flu type symptoms in the community, Histopath like many other pathology centres, is working around the clock once again like they did at the height of the pandemic.

"For the last five days … we've already got 40,000 influenza tests we've done and we've found 5000 cases of influenza type A and B within that cohort.

Early results from dual testing are showing that around 12 to 14 per cent of swabs are coming up positive to the flu.

But Grainger said it's still yet to be seen whether COVID-19 and the now the latest influenza wave will create a new normal for Australians.

"I think we shall find a balancing out, sooner rather than later and I think we are all navigating what this new normal shall look like," Grainger said.

The common cold is not something that is currently being tested for, which is what many people may also be suffering from this winter.