Most US states are experiencing excessive or very excessive flu exercise, and ranges proceed to improve nationwide.
“Flu season is just getting started, so I think it’s really hard to say exactly what it’s going to look like,” Dr. Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, instructed NCS on Tuesday. “What we’re seeing right now is a very rapid escalation of cases.”
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that there have been a minimum of 7,500,000 diseases, 81,000 hospitalizations, and three,100 deaths from flu to date this season, according to an update printed by the company on Tuesday with data by December 20. At least eight kids have died from flu to date this season.
Among the states with the highest ranges of flu exercise are Colorado, Louisiana, New Jersey, New York and South Carolina, according to the CDC.
Trends are growing across key surveillance metrics: laboratory testing, outpatient well being care visits, hospitalizations and mortality are all increased than they had been every week in the past.
One surveillance system reveals that flu hospitalizations doubled over the previous week; greater than 19,000 individuals had been admitted to the hospital with flu throughout the most up-to-date week, up from about 9,900 hospital admissions the week earlier than.
The CDC says that “severity indicators remain low at this time, but influenza activity is expected to continue for several weeks.”
Influenza A(H3N2) viruses are the mostly reported, and extra genetic testing suggests {that a} new flu variant — referred to as subclade Okay — that brought on early and busy flu seasons in different half of the world seems to be driving the overwhelming majority of circumstances in the US.
The CDC recommends that everybody age 6 months and older get a flu vaccine every season, however vaccination charges have been reducing lately. Only about 130 million flu vaccines have been distributed this season, CDC data reveals, 13 million fewer doses than by this time final yr. Additional data means that solely about 17% of kids and 23% of adults had gotten their seasonal flu vaccine by the finish of November.
Osterholm encourages individuals who haven’t but been vaccinated in opposition to flu to act shortly as the virus is “wiping through” the country.
“It’s not too late to get your flu shot,” he stated. “It doesn’t guarantee you won’t get flu. It doesn’t guarantee that you still won’t get sick, but it surely is a big improvement on what the otherwise outcome could be of either being seriously ill or dying.”