NEW YORK (AP) – February is usually the highlight of flu season, with doctors’ offices and hospitals crammed with suffering patients. But not this year.
Influenza has virtually disappeared from the US, with reports coming in at much lower levels than anything seen in decades.
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Experts believe that measures to ward off the coronavirus – masking, social distance and virtual education – have been a major factor in preventing a ‘twindemy’ of flu and COVID-19. A push to get more people vaccinated against the flu has probably also helped, as have fewer people traveling.
However, flu-related hospitalizations are a small fraction of where they would stand even during a very mild season, said Brammer, who oversees the detection of the virus by CDC.
Data on flu deaths for the entire U.S. population are difficult to compile quickly, but CDC officials keep track of the number of deaths of children. So far this season, one fatal disease has been reported in children, compared to 92 reported at the same point in last year’s flu season.
“Many parents will tell you that their children were as healthy this year as ever before because they did not swim in the germ pool at school or daycare, just like in previous years,” Mick said.
Some doctors say they have even stopped sending samples for the test because they do not think flu is present. Nevertheless, many labs use a CDC-developed ‘multiplex test’ that checks for coronavirus and flu samples, Brammer said.
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More than 190 million flu vaccine doses have been distributed this season, but the number of infections is so low that it is difficult for CDC to do its annual calculation of how well the vaccine works, Brammer said. There is simply not enough data, she said.
It is also a challenge to plan the flu vaccine for next season. Such work usually begins with examining which flu strains are circulating around the world and predicting which of them are likely to dominate in the coming year.
“But there are not many (flu) viruses to look for,” Brammer said.