Will there be a severe flu season this year?

[marting]

This is why I'm not getting a fllu vaccine. Yet. Ve for flu vaccines wanes quickly.

Waning of Influenza Vaccine Protection: Exploring the Trade-offs of Changes in Vaccination Timing Among Older Adults

https://academic.oup.com/cid/article/70/8/1550/5525379

I'm tracking the CDC surveilance data to decide when or if I'll get a flu vaccine.

 

[marting]

I'm expecting a nasty flu season next year. It won't hit us badly until about April/May, which is going to be long enough after lockdowns and precautions have been lifted that most people will have forgotten what it was like. I'll definitely be getting my shot as soon as it is available.

I completely agree with your timing estimate if, indeed, we have a flu season. It's in competiton with wamer weather. I'm uncertain whether we will even have a flu season.

 

[Puppycow]

Most masks don't filter much air, they just catch droplets.Most masks I see aren't filtering out Covid that's for sure.

The Covid is mostly in those droplets though.

 

[Oystein]

Wouldn't we all. I'd rather they were stuck in your mask than floating towards me right now though.

The point is that outside, I am highly unlikely to hit anyone with whatever droplets and particulate I exhale. The best option is to let it all be carried away or at least much diluted in the wind. It's not a good idea to retain much of the virus I exhale in my mask.

Try changing your mask. Most masks don't filter much air, they just catch droplets.Most masks I see aren't filtering out Covid that's for sure.

I generally use "FFP2" masks, that's the best among the economically feasible and easily obtainable masks here. And that is part of the problem, because they do filter air, they retain much of the particulate and keep it near my face, and feed microbes. I should change them pretty often, but that gets expensive. I have like half a dozen masks that I use in rotation, letting the ones I don't use catch some sun and several days to degrade at least some of the bugs. And replace those that become visibly dirty, or mechanically unfit.

 

[marting]

A small increase in flu reports for 5-24 y/o group. No increase in other groups. Looks like school spread. New Mexico shows the most but quite low so far. Well below normal for this time of year.

 

[marting]

Large flu breakout at Uinversity of Michigan.

https://record.umich.edu/articles/cdc-in-ann-arbor-to-research-flu-cases-on-campus/

Since the first positive case on Oct. 6, there have been 528 cases of influenza diagnosed at the University Health Service, with 77.1 percent of cases in unvaccinated individuals. UHS officials saw increases in cases of influenza the past two weeks, with 313 cases (37 percent test positivity) the week of Nov. 8 and 198 cases (27.2 percent test positivity) the previous week.

And UofM has indoor mask requirements.

 

[Puppycow]

I assume these are all laboratory-confirmed?

Maybe I'm mis-reading something, but isn't that more than the CDC reported for the entire country?

 

[marting]

I assume these are all laboratory-confirmed?

Maybe I'm mis-reading something, but isn't that more than the CDC reported for the entire country?

CDC gets data from locales that analyze and report flu. It's a subset. Here's the most recent CDC statement on Week 44.

https://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/

Among 102 A(H3N2) viruses reported for week 44, 68 (66.7%) were reported by Michigan. The majority of influenza positives reported from Michigan can be linked to a single outbreak among young adults. Additionally, during week 44, a large backfill of data from previous weeks was received from Region 3

 

[Puppycow]

Oh, and I got my flu shot on Saturday. The timing may be early, but I'm traveling to the US for the next two weeks and visiting my family for Thanksgiving, so I got mine one week before my flight. I'm planning around my own schedule more than the virus's schedule.

 

[Puppycow]

The flu is definitely back this year, at least in the US.

The predominant strain seems to be H3N2.

https://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/index.htm

https://gis.cdc.gov/grasp/fluview/flu_by_age_virus.html

If anyone hasn't had their shot yet and plans to get one, it might be a good idea to hurry up and get yours.

 

[rdwight]

The flu is definitely back this year, at least in the US.

The predominant strain seems to be H3N2.

Appears to be a mismatch to the vaccine this year - This years flu vaccine major mismatch

Seeing some uptick in my area with around 5% of tests coming back positive. Definitely an increase in testing as well, which means doctors are seeing a lot more circulate even with covid ramping up.

 

[marting]

It's started to increase but slowed down in the last week. Interaction with Omicron fear. People wearing masks almost everywhere in comparison to 4 weeks ago. Will drive the low flu rates down. At least in this area. Still very low historically, and particularly where I live in Calif.

I was getting close to getting a flu vax but have decided that the most risky time is likely to be delayed until March or April. I'm basing the vax timing on the rapid decrease in efficacy of Flu vaccines. Peaks a few weeks after vax and pretty much gone in 4 months. I want to maximize it with where I anticipate the peak to be.

My current target is Feb. Subject to change based on the weekly rates here.

There are places in the USA where i would get it right now.

 

[marting]

Appears to be a mismatch to the vaccine this year - This years flu vaccine major mismatch

Seeing some uptick in my area with around 5% of tests coming back positive. Definitely an increase in testing as well, which means doctors are seeing a lot more circulate even with covid ramping up.

Yeah. That's unfortunate. Might change later on in the season.

https://gis.cdc.gov/grasp/fluview/flu_by_age_virus.html

 

[marting]

It's started to increase but slowed down in the last week. Interaction with Omicron fear. People wearing masks almost everywhere in comparison to 4 weeks ago. Will drive the low flu rates down. At least in this area. Still very low historically, and particularly where I live in Calif.

I was getting close to getting a flu vax but have decided that the most risky time is likely to be delayed until March or April. I'm basing the vax timing on the rapid decrease in efficacy of Flu vaccines. Peaks a few weeks after vax and pretty much gone in 4 months. I want to maximize it with where I anticipate the peak to be.

My current target is Feb. Subject to change based on the weekly rates here.

There are places in the USA where i would get it right now.

Flu increased somewhat through Dec but the NPIs in response to Omicron have had a strong effect on decreasing flu rates and they are now at minimal levels and dropping throughout most of the USA. Currently under 10% of what is usual this time of year.

Hard to say what sort of pickup might occur after Omicron but I'm putting off my flu shot for the above reasons (rapid waning) once again. Maybe March or April.

 

[marting]

Flu increased somewhat through Dec but the NPIs in response to Omicron have had a strong effect on decreasing flu rates and they are now at minimal levels and dropping throughout most of the USA. Currently under 10% of what is usual this time of year.

Hard to say what sort of pickup might occur after Omicron but I'm putting off my flu shot for the above reasons (rapid waning) once again. Maybe March or April.

Flu continued to drop and is now plateaued at very low levels. Residual covid NPIs and warming weather likely factors.

However, lower population immunity will increase flu risks going forward as people increase socialization with fewer NPIs. This from somewhat lower flu vax rates this year and lack of material levels of flu infections in the last 2 years. Unkown how that will play out in the next several months.

 

[marting]

Bad luck mitigated by good luck.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/me...-basically-worthless/ar-AAUWZBv?ocid=msedgntp

This winter’s flu vaccine was a particularly bad match for the most common influenza strain in circulation, a new analysis from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found. Thankfully, the flu season was much milder than usual for the second year in a row, as ongoing covid-19 precautions likely blunted the spread of flu as well.

 

[marting]

To date Flu continued to decline and is now slightly upticking. Still only about 10% of the peaks during typical seasons.

 

[Puppycow]

So I guess we can now say with pretty high confidence that the answer to the title of the thread is no.

That’s two years in a row where “experts” suggested that flu season would be worse than usual and the opposite was the case.

 

[marting]

So I guess we can now say with pretty high confidence that the answer to the title of the thread is no.

That’s two years in a row where “experts” suggested that flu season would be worse than usual and the opposite was the case.

Well, were it not for Omicron, which reared its ugly head in November and started to influence behavior materially in late Dec., I suspect they would have been right about this year.

What I'm looking for is whether Rt increased because of the truncated 2019-20 season and non-existent 2020-2021 season as seasonal infections produce some small amount of additional immunity that carries over. That said, flu is highly seasonal and we are moving into that period where it tends to decline. So, yeah, my guess at this point is no significant flu until Fall. Might well be larger than normal then unless some new C19 variant intervenes.

 

[Puppycow]

Well, if they predict a severe flu season every year, eventually they will probably be right. But the Boy Who Cried Wolf was eventually right too. It's just that nobody believed him any more after too many false alarms.