“Covid-19 activity is low and stable in most areas. Seasonal influenza activity in children is increasing slightly but is low nationally,” the CDC said in a statement this week. Weekly report On data about both The virus.
Agency updates are usually published by Friday each week, but were delayed until the weekend due to the Thanksgiving holiday.
Back to normal for the flu?
Until then last yearData tracking outpatient visits to places like emergency rooms and doctors’ offices for the flu had already climbed above the agency’s baseline for the season. This year’s latest report Recommends Flu cases are just beginning to cross that threshold.
“We’re probably going to have more cases than last year,” said Justin Lessler, professor of epidemiology at the University of North Carolina, who supports the CDC. A little later, and maybe a little later than last year, but those years were unusually early.” Network Predictors of disease
This year’s numbers “look pretty close to where you would expect a normal flu season” before COVID-19, Lessler said. A global pandemicwhen outbreak prevention measures encompassed seasonal patterns of flu and other respiratory germs.
Compared to last year, the rate of Weekly flu hospitalizations are about five times less. According to the CDC, flu-related emergency room visits among school-aged children have spiked. Data shows, but less than a third of what they were at this time last year.
A major factor that could affect this year’s numbers is the last two waves of influenza, as well as immunity in the population. Vaccination.
“We’ve had two fairly significant seasons, which could account for this delay,” said epidemiologist Sean. “It’s really like uncertainty right now,” epidemiologist Sean said. Truelove, associate scientist at the Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health.
Modeling The predictions for this year’s flu season, compiled from different experts, offer different predictions about what the country’s flu immunity looks like, as they try to project different scenarios for how this year will turn out to be the case. What can flu season look like?
Truelove, who also helps lead the CDC-funded Disease Prediction Network, also thinks this year could mark a “return to normalcy” for the flu.
“That being said, the flu is never consistent. We get early seasons and late seasons. So it’s hard to say what that means, and everything post-pandemic, scale,” Truelove said. And the timing is a little weird,” Truelove said.
Looking at another COVID-19 wave.
Several trends in CoVID-19 that the CDC tracks also currently remain below records recorded in 2023. That’s in contrast to previous summer waves of the virus, which dipped slightly in the fall before resurging in the winter.
COVID 19 Emergency room visits Late this year, nearly all states are “low” or “minimum.” Summer wave of the virus. Virus levels in dirty water All regions have “minimums”, compared to “higher” levels around this time last year.
“Does that mean that the summer tide was so immune that we won’t see the winter tide? Does that mean the winter tide is coming, but a little later?” Later and maybe a little bit younger,” Lessler said.
Both Truelove and Lessler said a major “data gap” compared to last season is the drop in data on COVID-19 hospitalizations across the country during the challenging summer surge.
Reporting of COVID-19 hospitalizations ended earlier this year, a pandemic-era emergency for healthcare providers to report, and only Recently started again Under a new rule issued by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
Other factors muddying the data include changes in how people test for and care for COVID-19 infections.
Another big unknown is the evolution of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. Mostly Circulating variations are now a mixture of closely related variants. Like XEC and KP.3.1.1.
“We don’t know, as we do for the flu, what the average speed of evolution of COVID away from our immune system will be when it’s cured,” Lessler said.
Preliminary data released last month The Ohio State University researchers found that XEC appears to be more infectious than the parental variant it is upstream of with KP.3.1.1. shares, but not significantly more than, its siblings.
“I’ve actually thought it’s gotten a little better after this year. We’ll see what I think after the season is over. But right now, I’m a little less sure,” he said.
Other respiratory pathogens are on the rise.
While COVID-19 and the flu are at unusually low levels nationwide, rates of at least other germs spread through coughs and sneezes remain high.
of the CDC Data Emergency room visits from the bacteria Mycoplasma pneumoniae, sometimes called “walking pneumonia,” have increased in recent weeks. Especially in children.
cases in this year’s wave of pertussis, or whooping coughis also continuing rapidly in several states across the country.
Agency long There were 577 pertussis infections nationwide during the week ending Nov. 23, up nearly 33 percent from the previous week’s count. That’s higher than the peak of the record pertussis wave in 2014, which reached 326 weekly infections in late December.
Ohio remained the state with the most cases of whooping cough last week, when 66 infections were reported.
The CDC’s “severe respiratory illness” metric, which combines the level of patients in emergency rooms with a wide array of cough and cold illnesses, including influenza and whooping cough, with the “moderate” level, including in Ohio. Spans 14 states.