[ad_1]
As the world focuses on COVID-19, the flu – another contagious respiratory illness caused by a virus – appears to be all but gone.
Influenza activity is “unusually low” for this time of year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in their latest US Weekly Influenza Surveillance Report.
“The CDC is modest – the flu is at record levels,” said Dr. William Schaffner, professor of infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in Nashville, Tennessee today.
“The influenza virus is not circulating in our population as it normally does.”
He and his colleagues have been conducting flu surveillance since the 1990s and have never seen disease levels close to this low, Schaffner noted.
Influenza activity is “drastically down,” added Dr Nisa Maruthur, primary care physician and associate professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.
Some 136 people were hospitalized with the flu between October 1, 2020 and January 16, 2021, and there were 292 deaths from the flu during that time, the CDC reported. A child has died.
The flu season is far from over – it usually begins in the fall and peaks between December and February.
But in comparison, 400,000 people were hospitalized with the flu and 22,000 died, including 434 children, throughout the 2019-2020 season, which the CDC called “serious” for children aged 4 and under and for adults aged 18 to 49. old.
The influenza activity maps are very different for the same week in January 2020 compared to 2021, with most states reporting minimal activity this year:
In 2020, high or very high influenza activity dominated the map:
The change is not surprising since the influenza virus is spread through respiratory droplets, similar to the novel coronavirus, and people wear masks, socially distance themselves and pay attention to hand hygiene to avoid COVID- 19, said Dr Waleed Javaid, director of infection prevention and control at Mount Sinai Downtown in New York City.
“Fewer people are on the move, and people are hopefully even less likely to go out if they are symptomatic,” Maruthur added. “In normal years, symptomatic people usually don’t have the same urge to stay home.”
But the main contributor has to do with children, who are typically “the great distributor” of influenza, Schaffner noted. Children are very contagious because they produce more influenza virus than adults and release it for longer periods of time.
But during the coronavirus outbreak, many children are learning at home or wearing masks and social distancing at school.
“Children are not infected and do not report the virus to their elders,” Schaffner said.
This is the reason he believes the incredibly low influenza activity during the coronavirus crisis will not be repeated in the years to come.
Still, wearing a mask could survive the outbreak, especially since it became familiar to people last year, Javaid said.
“Would it be good practice in winter to wear a mask? I tend to say yes, ”he noted. “I think we should seriously consider using masks to reduce the intensity of flu seasons.”
This could reduce hospitalizations and flu deaths in the years to come, but there will be no impact if only a few Americans continue to wear masks and keep their social distances in future flu seasons, the experts said.
Some people are already saying they will keep the mask habit since they haven’t had the sniffles or any other cold and flu symptoms since the coronavirus started.
Other lessons learned are that physical distancing, the flu shot, and staying home if you are symptomatic are also very effective, Maruthur added. More than 193 million doses of the flu vaccine were distributed as of mid-January, according to the CDC.
“We’re all used to seeing people wearing masks now – that’s okay. I think we can see a lot more of that and more cautious behavior during influenza season, ”Schaffner noted.
“Wear your masks, social distancing – do that stuff on an annual basis. I think we will see a lot more of these posts as they are now more socially acceptable and familiar to many people.
Does a lighter-than-normal flu season so far this year mean the next will be more problematic? The flu is “very weird,” so there’s no way to predict what will happen in 2022, NBC News medical correspondent Dr John Torres said. The main message is to get your flu shot in the fall, and always get one now if you haven’t already in case flu activity picks up in the coming weeks.
[ad_2]
Source link