US flu activity fell for a second week. But experts worry the season is far from over
NEW YORK (AP) — The U.S. flu season appears to be waning with two straight weeks of decline in measures of flu activity, according to the latest government data released Friday.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention posted data — for flu activity through last week — that showed a big drop in flu hospitalizations and a smaller but significant decrease in medical office visits due to flu-like illness.
The number of states reporting high flu activity also fell — from 44 to 36.
Meanwhile, there have not been large surges in two other winter menaces — COVID-19 and RSV.
CDC officials are calling the current respiratory virus season “moderate.” But that doesn’t mean the season is over, especially for flu. Second surges in flu activity often occur after the winter holidays.
“We’ve had other seasons where we’ve had a peak, it’s gone down, but we’ve nonetheless had a prolonged season,” said Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious diseases specialist at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee.
“Most of us are crossing our fingers,” he added. ”But I don’t think we can rely on the concept that flu is abating very early this year.”
Medical experts have worried about this season because it has been dominated by a kind of flu virus, called A H3N2, that historically causes the most hospitalizations and deaths in older people.
Even more concerning, about 90% of the H3N2 infections analyzed this season were a new strain that differs from the version accounted for in this year’s flu shots.
So far this season, there have been at least 18 million flu illnesses and 230,000 hospitalizations, according to the CDC. The agency also estimates there have been 9,300 deaths from flu so far, including at least 32 children. For those children whose vaccination status is known, 90% were not fully vaccinated against flu.
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