We’ve Crushed The Flu This Year
As awful as the Covid-19 pandemic is, it’s given us at least one benefit: we’ve utterly crushed the flu virus.
www.forbes.com
Mar 8, 2021,07:30am EST|1,399 views
We’ve Crushed The Flu This Year
Steven SalzbergContributor
Healthcare
YURI KADOBNOV/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
As awful as the Covid-19 pandemic is, it’s given us at least one benefit: we’ve utterly crushed the flu virus.
That’s right–the flu has almost completely disappeared this year. A combination of social distancing, closed schools and businesses, dramatically reduced travel, and high flu vaccination rates has achieved something that most flu experts never thought possible.
Flu levels are so low, in fact, that one has to wonder if the flu will even come back next year. The levels now are far lower than we’ve ever seen in modern history. Let’s take a look at the numbers.
Influenza cases reported to the CDC by US public health laboratories, 2020-2021 season, through Feb. ... [+] GRAPH CREATED BY THE AUTHOR FROM PUBLIC DATA. DATA FROM THE U.S. CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION.
PROMOTED
As you can see here, the very worst week had just 24 confirmed cases in the entire U.S. That is truly astonishing. And in 2021 so far, we’ve had 5 or fewer cases in the entire country each week. Basically, the flu is gone. To see how dramatic this is, let’s look at data from last year (the winter of 2019-2020), which was a typical flu season:
Flu cases in the U.S. during the winter of 2019-2020, a typical recent flu season. Data from the ... [+] GRAPH CREATED BY THE AUTHOR. DATA FROM THE US CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION.
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As you can see here, the U.S. had about 3,000 cases per week in January and February of 2020, with a peak at nearly 4,000 cases.
The rate of influenza this year is over 100 times lower than it’s ever been. Why did this happen? It’s obvious: all of the precautions we’re taking to reduce the spread of Covid-19 have worked wonders to prevent the flu as well. In fact, they’ve worked far better for influenza than for the Covid-19 virus.
No one knows what the flu season will look like next year, but for now, at least we’ve won a clear victory against the influenza virus. That’s a bit of good news.