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Public health experts have said this year’s flu season could result in three times as many hospitalizations, putting additional strain on the healthcare system during the pandemic, NBC News reported.
The Centers for Disease Control reported that since 2010, there are somewhere between 9.3 and 45 million influenza illnesses each year and more than 200,000 hospitalizations.
Public health officials expected a “twindemia” last winter, but only 155 Americans were hospitalized with the flu between October 1 and January 30, the peak of the flu season. That is in comparison to 8,633 Americans hospitalized with the flu during the same period the year before.
Experts said the lack of flu cases was most likely due to COVID-19 measures such as mask-wearing and social distancing. However, some now fear that the drop in cases may mean a rebound this year.
“The possibility of a ‘twindemia’ is quite real this year,” Dr Brian Dixon, director of public health informatics at the Regenstrief Institute, told WTHR.
In two new preprints of non-peer reviewed studies, researchers at the Graduate School of Public Health at the University of Pittsburgh estimated that there could be at least 20% more influenza cases this year compared to in a normal year or in the worst case, double the cases.
Hospitalizations could be three times their normal number with around 600,000 influenza-related hospitalizations, according to the analysis.
Dr Mark Roberts, director of the Public Health Dynamics Laboratory at the Graduate School of Public Health at the University of Pittsburgh, said in a press release that as COVID-19 measures are relaxed, the flu and other respiratory illnesses will return, but flu shots will increase. rates can help facilitate hospitalizations.
“In a worst-case scenario with a dominant highly transmissible influenza strain and low use of influenza vaccination, our predictive models indicate the potential of nearly half a million additional influenza hospitalizations this winter, per compared to a normal flu season. Vaccinating so many people with the flu will be the key to avoiding this scenario. “
The University’s analysis suggests that 75% of Americans should get a flu shot to avoid this worst-case scenario. During the 2019-2020 flu season, 51.8% of Americans. Just over half have received a flu shot, the CDC reported.
David Kimberlin, co-director of the division of pediatric infectious diseases at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, told NBC News he has already seen children entering hospital this summer with respiratory illnesses normally seen in winter , such as respiratory syncytial virus, croup, and foot, hand and mouth disease.
Dr Sean O’Leary, an infectious disease physician at Colorado Children’s Hospital, told NBC News in July that there was no clear explanation as to why these respiratory diseases were spreading. in the summer, but said one of the reasons could be sagging. instructions on social distancing and wearing a mask.
“There is a lot more mixing between people than there ever was,” he said.
Kimberlin told the outlet her hospital was now overrun with the Delta variant and warned that adding an increase in influenza cases to the mix “has the potential to be catastrophic.”
The United States has recorded an average of 87,220 hospitalizations for COVID-19 in the past week. Hospitals in some states, especially those with low immunization rates, are at or near capacity.
Read the original article on Business Insider
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