Phil Kerpen Profile picture
26 Mar, 26 tweets, 12 min read
Friday Fluday Thread, MMWR Week 11
United States Influenza testing, MMWR week 11.

CDC flu view. cdc.gov/flu/weekly/ind…

Five-year average: 6,663 cases; 20.50% positive

Last year: 7,340; 15.77%
This year: 22; 0.07%

docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d…
United States Influenza testing, season to date (25 weeks, MMWR 40 to 11)

Five-year average: 175,955 cases; 18.75% positive

Last year: 272,593; 22.65%

This year: 1,854; 0.16%
Season-to-date U. S. flu hospitalizations down 98.9% from last year, which was a typical year.

Flu hospitalizations total (25 weeks) in FluSurv-NET catchment is 210. Through week 11 last year (24 weeks) it was 18,904.

Rate last year: 65.1 per 100K
This year: 0.7 per 100K
Influenza-Like Illness (ILI) continues to track well lower than the mild 2015-16 and 2011-12 seasons, and is flat after a tick up the previous week.
Still just one U.S. pediatric flu death this season. (There are 119 pediatric deaths with COVID this season.)

CDC did report two additional pediatric flu deaths this week, but both were added to last year, the 2019-2020 season.
Latest U.S. non-SARS-CoV2 syndromic data from BioFire.

Lots of rhinoviruses and some adenoviruses all year.

HCoV-OC43 and especially HCoV-NL63 comebacks continue as SARS-CoV2 recedes.

Flu A, B, RSV, and PIV are all back at low levels.

syndromictrends.com/metric/panel/r…
More on the HCoV-NL63 comeback. CDC surveillance data. Spike already over? cdc.gov/surveillance/n…
Big HCoV-NL63 Midwest spike; in previous years HCoV-NL63 rose as other more dominant coronavirus faded.
Florida.

Schools open all year. No lockdowns since September. Rhinoviruses and some adenoviruses but still nearly no flu;

PIV has reappeared.

RSV rise has resumed and is now above baseline.

floridahealth.gov/diseases-and-c…
Sweden week 11. No masks, no lockdowns, no school closures -- and nearly a full year with no Flu A, Flu B, or RSV. HCoVs have come back and rose again this week.
karolinska.se/globalassets/g…
Brazil. Very lax control measures, and a president who urges people to disregard them. Still no flu.
apps.who.int/flumart/Defaul…
The global flu chart from WHO through week 11.
apps.who.int/flumart/Defaul…
But flu did not disappear everywhere.
apps.who.int/flumart/Defaul…
It wasn't masks, which were never used in many countries where flu disappeared and have been shown to be ineffective for stopping influenza in many, many studies.
Japan masked hard in 2019 and failed to stop a major flu outbreak. But in 2020 flu disappeared with low stringency COVID intervention.
The idea mitigations worked but unmitigated SARS-CoV2 just has a higher R (popular now among the same crowd that said twindemic! when flu had been gone for months) is way too facile.
Outside of testing ramp up, I don't think we've seen R > 2, even in places without NPIs.

Rhinoviruses bounced right back despite lower R and RSV was gone until recently with comparable R to SARS-CoV2.

HCoVs were gone until SARS-CoV2 declined.
Plus, as Biden adviser Dr. Michael Osterholm points out, our mitigation just hasn't been very effective. Maybe in places like Australia and New Zealand where mitigations stopped SARS-CoV2 they also stopped other viruses. But in countries where SARS-CoV2 went wild? No.
Osterholm: "There is this viral interference"
Viral interference is a well-known (but poorly understood) phenomenon. Interference from rhinovirus is generally thought to have ended the swine flu epidemic in 2009.
thelancet.com/journals/lanmi…
This great short article from @m_soond explains the viral interference theory of this respiratory season: medium.com/illumination-c…
Overall the season has been so mild that drug store chains took big losses.

Rite Aid CEO Heyward Donigan: "During the fourth quarter our industry was impacted by a historically soft cough, cold and flu season."

forbes.com/sites/brucejap…
We're seeing reports like this from all over the country. The empty pediatric wards usually used for respiratory disease have been converted to deal with the overflow child psychiatric admissions from lockdowns/school closures.
Pediatric internships and residencies have to be extended because they just didn't have enough patients to gain the normal amount of clinical experience.
The bottom line is many places locked kids out of school during the *safest* respiratory season globally (and without regard to NPIs) for children ever recorded. It's a disgrace.

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More from @kerpen

22 Mar
American Psychological Association Stress in America™ pandemic survey shows 42% of U.S. adults report undesired weight gain, with an average gain of 29 lbs.
apa.org/news/press/rel…
75% of parents say they could have used more emotional support than they received, 32% received treatment from a mental health professional, and 24% were diagnosed with a mental health disorder since the pandemic started.
apa.org/news/press/rel…
75% of essential workers say they could have used more emotional support than they received, 34% received treatment from a mental health professional, and 1 in 4 (25%) was diagnosed with a mental health disorder since the start of the pandemic.
apa.org/news/press/rel…
Read 5 tweets
21 Mar
MILESTONE from @BurbioCalendar: a majority of U.S. public K-12 students are in schools offering full-time, traditional instruction for the first time in a year.
% US K-12 students attending "virtual-only" schools = 18.1% (from 20.8% last week)

% US K-12 students attending "traditional" in-person/every day schools = 51.2% (from 49.1%)

% US K-12 students attending "hybrid" schools = 30.7% (from 30.1%)
Virtual-only by state. Image
Read 10 tweets
20 Mar
CDC: Percent of 65+ population vaccinated (at least one dose) by state of residence, including all federal and state programs, ranked. Image
We knew New York would be very bad -- because why else would they refuse to ever report age in their state data? -- and they are. 48th, ahead only of Alabama and Hawaii.
Read 9 tweets
19 Mar
Friday Fluday Thread, MMWR Week 10

Please remember who told you we'd skip flu season and who screamed twindemic!
United States Influenza testing, MMWR week 10.

CDC flu view. cdc.gov/flu/weekly/ind…

Five-year average: 7,967 cases; 22.45% positive

Last year: 10,158; 22.38%

This year: 28; 0.09%

docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d…
United States Influenza testing, season to date (24 weeks, MMWR 40 to 10)

Five-year average: 166,096 cases; 18.47% positive

Last year: 262,224; 22.91%

This year: 1,822; 0.16%
Read 21 tweets
14 Mar
Weekly update from @BurbioCalendar:

% US K-12 students attending "virtual-only" schools = 20.8% (from 23.7% last week)

% US K-12 students attending "traditional" in-person/every day schools = 49.1% (from 46.9%)

% US K-12 students attending "hybrid" schools = 30.1% (from 29.4%)
By state.

This "in-person index" is calculated by weighting the percentage of K-12 students in a state attending virtual schools at zero, traditional schools at 100, and hybrid districts at 50.
By grade level.
Read 6 tweets
12 Mar
Friday Fluday Thread, MMWR Week 9

Please remember who told you we'd skip flu season and who screamed twindemic!
United States Influenza testing, MMWR week 9.

CDC flu view. cdc.gov/flu/weekly/ind…

Five-year average: 8,271 cases; 23.16% positive

Last year: 11,782; 25.57%

This year: 22; 0.08%

docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d…
United States Influenza testing, season to date (23 weeks, MMWR 40 to 9)

Five-year average: 152,516 cases; 17.88% positive

Last year: 245,227; 22.71%

This year: 1,764; 0.17%
Read 22 tweets

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