Helen Branswell 🇨🇦 Profile picture
I cover infectious diseases @statnews. 2020 Polk winner. Nieman '11. She/her. #H5N2 #birdflu #Covid #polio #flu, #RSV. I have not paid for a blue checkmark.

Jan 23, 2021, 5 tweets

1. Count your blessings time.
It's Friday, @CDCgov's FluView has been published & wow. Wow. Wow. Wow.
There continues to be almost no #flu activity in the U.S. Given that there's plenty of #Covid19 activity, you cannot explain this simply by masks + social distancing.

2. Lots of people are being diagnosed with #Covid19 — 186,000 on Jan. 21 — so clearly people are contracting respiratory pathogens. Just not #flu so much.
23 positive flu cases in the US in week 2 (ending Jan 16) - less than 2 dozen - is crazy low.

3. Also crazy low: So far this year the hospitals in the national flu surveillance network have reported 136 people hospitalized with serious #flu infections. Last year by week 2 of the flu season, 5,786 people had been hospitalized for flu.

4. It's really beginning to look like there won't be a #flu season this year. Hope I'm not jinxing it by saying so. Nearest approximation for this year was 2011-12, a nothing flu year. (brown arrow)

5. Almost no #flu means almost no pediatric flu deaths. Such a good thing.

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