Flu season worsens as 44 states report high activity

NEW YORK (AP) — The U.S. flu season retains getting worse.

Well being officers stated Friday that 7.5% of outpatient medical visits final week have been as a result of flu-like diseases. That is as excessive as the height of the 2017-18 flu season and better than any season since.

The annual winter flu season often doesn’t get going till December or January, however this one started early and has been sophisticated by the simultaneous unfold of different viruses.

The measure of site visitors in physician’s places of work is predicated on stories of signs like coughs and sore throats, not on lab-confirmed diagnoses. So it could embrace different respiratory diseases.

That makes it onerous to match to flu seasons from earlier than the COVID-19 pandemic. Different years additionally did not have this 12 months’s unusually robust wave of RSV, or respiratory syncytial virus, a typical reason for cold-like signs that may be severe for infants and the aged.

In the meantime, 44 states reported excessive or very excessive flu exercise final week, the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention stated Friday.

That will not bode properly for the close to future. It is probably there was extra unfold of respiratory viruses throughout Thanksgiving gatherings and at crowded airports, specialists say.

The dominant flu pressure thus far is the sort sometimes related to increased charges of hospitalizations and deaths, significantly in folks 65 and older.

The CDC estimates there have been at the very least 78,000 hospitalizations and 4,500 deaths from flu thus far this season. The deaths embrace at the very least 14 youngsters.

Flu pictures are beneficial for almost all People who’re at the very least 6 months previous or older.

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The Related Press Well being and Science Division receives help from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Instructional Media Group. The AP is solely chargeable for all content material.