According to a recent report from the CDC, American family wellness is feeling the brunt of the flu season, as some areas are seeing increases in influenza activity, hospitalisations and deaths. Though states in the South, Southeast, Midwest, and New England are generally seeing flu activity wane, the wellbeing of those in the Southwest and Northwest are by no means as secure.
As it takes time for people to develop wellness complications from their infections, the numbers of hospitalisations and deaths are actually lagging behind reported flu cases, but during the last week in January the proportion of deaths attributed to pneumonia and influenza rose to 9.8% from 8.3% the week before. This is the third week in a row that the figure has remained above the epidemic threshold of 7.3%.
Also this week, eight more deaths among children have been reported, which brings the total of child flu-related deaths to 37. This now exceeds the paediatric death toll of last year, when 34 children succumbed to the flu. Compared to last week, the rate of laboratory-confirmed flu-related hospitalisations has also increased from 18.8 to 22.2 per 100,000, half of which occurred in individuals 65 and older. This group of people are being admitted for the flu at a rate of roughly 97 per 100,000.
According to CDC director Thomas Frieden, MD, MPH, these numbers show that America is continuing to experience ‘a worse-than-average season’. However, the results did at least show that outpatient visits attributed to flu-like illness has dropped to 4.3% in the most recent week of data, from 4.6% and 4.8% the prior two weeks. Yet it is still a noteworthy figure, as it remains above the national baseline of 2.2% for the seventh week in a row.
Though the number of states reporting high flu-like illness activity has declined from 30 states and New York City the week before, to 26 states and New York City, nearly all still report geographically widespread influenza activity, Georgia and Tennessee report regional activity and Hawaii and the District of Columbia report local activity. Therefore, the CDC have reiterated that it’s important to get vaccinated, even if you have to look in different places to find it, as the vaccine has proven to be a good match for the circulating viruses.
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