Flu Exercise Falls for the Fourth Straight Week

The 2022-23 influenza season acquired off to a quick and relatively nasty begin in October and November, however December introduced a drop in infections as an alternative of the standard surge, in keeping with CDC knowledge.

“Seasonal influenza exercise stays excessive however is declining in most areas,” the CDC’s Influenza Division mentioned final week in its weekly FluView report.

Nationally, 6.1% of outpatient visits for the week ending Dec. 24 have been for influenza-like sickness. Since that fee hit 7.5% in late November — the quickest begin to a flu season since 2009 — exercise has dropped for 4 consecutive weeks, the CDC mentioned. 

In 2009, the outpatient go to fee reached 7.7% in mid-October, however exercise dropped rapidly after that, falling to lower than 3% by the tip of November, CDC knowledge present.

As with the variety of outpatient visits, hospital admissions are already on the decline as properly. The weekly variety of flu-related hospitalizations reached 26,000 in early December however has fallen for 3 straight weeks and was down to simply below 19,000 for Dec. 18-24, in keeping with knowledge from practically 4,900 hospitals to the Division of Well being and Human Companies.

The CDC estimates the entire variety of flu hospitalizations to be 210,000 by way of the primary 11 weeks of the 2022-23 season. There have been an estimated 20 million diseases and 13,000 deaths from the flu to date in the USA, with 61 of these deaths in kids. By comparability, there have been 44 pediatric deaths from the flu throughout all the 2021-22 season, just one in 2020-21, and 199 in 2019-20, the CDC mentioned.

Supply

CDC: “Weekly U.S. Influenza Surveillance Report, Up to date December 30, 2022.”