United States: The U.S. flu season is over for now. It was protracted, but that didn’t make it especially harsh.
Decline in Flu Activity
Last Friday, for the third straight week since then, medical visits for flu-like illnesses went below the threshold for what’s counted as an active flu season, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.
Similarly, other indicators, such as hospital admissions and patient testing, have shown a low and decreased number. All states are recording a low rate of flu activity. Only New England states have the sort of patient flow typically associated with a major flu season, which is described as mild at the moment, as reported by Associated Press.
Moderate Impact and Response
The CDC estimates that about 34 million cases of flu have been reported nationwide since the beginning of October. Hospitalizations stand at 380,000, while deaths are already at 24,000. The agency reported that 148 kids had died due to the flu itself.
For their part, CDC authorities also deemed the flu at hand “moderate,” a word that also described the general belief of other physicians.
Implications for Healthcare Systems
Dr. Jay Varkey, an infectious disease physician at Atlanta’s Emory University Hospital, said that even at the peak, he expressed feelings of being stretched beyond his capacity, but never near the point of being overly stressed and overwhelmed.
“It felt more like a traditional respiratory virus season than when we had massive upswings of COVID confounding it,” he added.
For months, most cases were identified as milder types of flu, and officials said that it also responds to flu vaccines. Data from a month prior indicated that vaccines for adults could only prevent around 40% of people from becoming too sick to visit their doctor’s office, clinic, or hospital.
COVID-19 patients felt the disease’s peak simultaneously, as the flu did. Apart from this, respiratory illnesses caused by another respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) were also a considerable concern.
Data for the current flu season from the CDC states that hospitalizations caused by coronavirus haven’t reached the number of the last three years by the same point. Influenza was sending more patients to hospital than coronavirus only a while back. However, according to the CDC’s data, the current hospitalization numbers remain the same.
However, the season wasn’t that bad, and its length is one reason why spring is a period of increased flu infection rates.
Adaptations in Monitoring and Response
COVID-19 overturned how those who monitor the respiratory viruses go about their work.
Its previous task was to provide evidence by counting the number of flu-like visits to the doctor’s office, but it was unclear how COVID-19 symptoms differed from regular flu. The agency now tracks the number of examinations with high positive rates in weeks, as reported by Associated Press.
In this situation, the new measure provided 21 weeks of flu season for the 2023-24 season. In comparison to levels before the emergence of COVID-19, influenza seasonality tended to be between 11 and 21 weeks.