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Jan 28 • 6 tweets • 5 min read
1. A short #flu 🧵
Flu activity in the US remains low for this time of year. For the week ending Jan 22, 1.9% of samples tested for flu were positive. To put that in context, in the corresponding week in 2019-20, the positivity rate was nearly 28%.
2. #Flu activity in the week ending Jan. 22 was roughly equal to the previous week, @CDCgov reports. But transmission of other respiratory pathogens has declined, which have brought the epi curve for #influenza-like illnesses (ILIs) for this season almost back down to baseline.
3. It's early in the flu season for this kind of decline; there could be a rebound later.
Is the decline due to precautions people are taking to avoid Covid? Is Covid beating the other ILIs to the punch — it's infecting people before flu or other ILIs can? I'd love to know.
4. You can see the ILI ... heat coming out of the map. Dark red=lots of transmission, bright green=minimal. Week ending Jan. 15 is on the left, Jan. 22 on the right. Non-Covid respiratory pathogen transmission is declining.
5. @CDCgov estimates that so far this year at least 2M Americans caught #flu, 20,000 were hospitalized for it & 1,200 died from it.
Would that all flu seasons were like this.
Pray it holds for the rest of the winter. We don't need more flu right now. cdc.gov/flu/weekly/
6. I find this super cool — @nextstrain's tracking of #influenza B's Yamagata strain.
When #flu activity was driven to historic low levels earlier in the pandemic, there was a real winnowing of viral diversity. No B/Yamagata sequence has been logged since 3-28-2020. Is it gone?

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More from @HelenBranswell

Helen Branswell Profile picture
Jan 21
1. A #flu 🧵 based on US data from @cdcgov.
Two children died from flu in the week ending Jan. 15, bringing to 5 the total number of pediatric flu deaths so far this season. It's a such a shame to see this feature of flu season return.
2. #Influenza-like illnesses dropped again last week. The further we get out from the holidays, the more likely it is that's a real thing, not an artifact of reporting delays. Is the Omicron wave crowding out flu? Are measures people are taking to avoid Omicron driving down flu?
3. #Influenza-like illness activity (which is #flu, RSV & a range of other non-Covid respiratory pathogens) is incredibly variable this year. It's unusual to see some areas reporting very little (green) & others lots (deep red). In a regular flu season, it's more homogeneous.
Read 5 tweets
Helen Branswell Profile picture
Jan 14
1. A #flu 🧵, based on U.S. data for the week ending Jan. 8.
There has been another pediatric death from flu, the third this season. It occurred in the week leading up to Christmas. Pediatric flu deaths are still at very low levels relative to regular flu years, thankfully. Image
2. #Flu activity is still at low levels & it actually dropped last week. Is that because of data filing delays over the holidays? Because people are avoiding health care because of Covid? Or is Omicron somehow crowding out flu? Need someone smarter than me to answer that Q. Image
3. Hospital admissions for flu decreased a little last week. That probably suggests some decline in #flu activity.
Will flu activity pick up again? Most flu seasons don't peak until late January, into February. The size of the Omicron wave, though, could be an influence here. Image
Read 7 tweets
Helen Branswell Profile picture
Jan 12
1. There is a new global flu report out from @WHO, so, a 🧵.
#Flu activity is picking up globally after the historic low levels seen in the first year & a half of the #Covid19 pandemic. In some places, WHO says, activity is now at levels see before the pandemic.
2. @WHO didn't stipulate which countries are experiencing as much #flu now as they would have at a corresponding time of the year in the pre-pandemic era. I've asked & will add the info if I get it. It could be in parts of Europe. This from @ECDC_EU.
3. The global positivity rate for the period from Dec. 6 to Dec. 26 was 5.2%, which is above where it was in mid-March, 2020 when #flu activity worldwide collapsed.
The new rate is based on more than a half-million diagnostic tests conducted across 110 countries.
Read 4 tweets
Helen Branswell Profile picture
Jan 7
1. A flu 🧵, because it's Friday.
We're definitely into #flu season, but this is not like the flu seasons of yore. (Not yet, anyway.) Still, it's important to remember hospitals are overwhelmed with Covid. Flu on top of Covid is an additional stressor the system doesn't need.
2. Things appear to be heating up in many parts of the country, though this map charts influenza-like illness, which is more than just #flu. @CDCgov reports that the NE and Central parts of the country are reporting more #influenza than the west.
3. The data in this week's FluView covers the week ending Jan. 1. Reports from over the holidays can sometimes contain incomplete data, which may explain this week's test positivity rate, which is 3.8%. That's down from 6.2% the week before. I doubt flu is actually abating.
Read 8 tweets
Helen Branswell Profile picture
Jan 5
42. #ACIP member Pablo Sanchez, who has been one of the most vocal about his concerns about vaccine-associated myocarditis, is supportive of a *should* recommendation. To borrow a phrase from elsewhere: I've seen enough.
43. #ACIP member Keipp Talbot says "this booster will not be a hammer" becoz too many 12-15 yos aren't vaccinated at all.
"Boosters are incredibly important but they won't solve this problem of the crowded hospitals." Talbot thinks efforts should focus on getting kids dose 1 &2.
44. When #ACIP votes (probably in the next few minutes) it will be on a *should* recommendation.
Which means the vote will be about recommending kids 12-17 should get a booster. 16 & 17 yos are included because currently the recommendation for them is a *may* recommendation.
Read 5 tweets
Helen Branswell Profile picture
Jan 5
1. #ACIP is meeting this afternoon to discuss the recently @US_FDA authorization of Covid boosters for youths aged 12 to 15. I'll be live tweeting. The agenda is here cdc.gov/vaccines/acip/… and the meeting can be monitored here: video.ibm.com/channel/VWBXKB…
2. Slide presentations for today's #ACIP meeting can be found here, though most of them aren't yet up: cdc.gov/vaccines/acip/…
3. At present there are 13 of the 15 #ACIP voting members in attendance. Chair Grace Lee says others may join later. This meeting was set up at short notice and members have had to scramble — as they have multiple times through the pandemic — to clear time for this meeting.
Read 40 tweets

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