Could enhanced influenza and pneumococcal vaccination programs help limit the potential damage from SARS-CoV-2 to fragile health systems of southern hemisphere countries this winter?

Low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) of the southern hemisphere are bracing themselves for the potential impact of a SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, in which Coronavirus Disease-19 (COVID-19) cases could overwhelm fragile health systems. One of the great hopes for northern hemisphere countries such as China, Italy, Iran, Japan, and South Korea, where community spread is ongoing, is that the arrival of spring and summer will reduce transmission of this respiratory virus. Intuitively, one hemisphere’s fortune is likely to be the other's misfortune.