Editor’s observe: See chilly and flu exercise in your location with the WebMD tracker.
Dec. 12, 2022 – The variety of People hospitalized due to the flu has hit the best ranges the nation has seen in not less than a decade, the CDC mentioned Friday.
However the variety of deaths and outpatient visits for flu or flu-like sicknesses was down barely from the week earlier than, the CDC mentioned in its weekly FluView report.
There have been nearly 26,000 new hospital admissions involving laboratory-confirmed influenza over these 7 days, up by over 31% from the earlier week, primarily based on information from 5,000 hospitals within the HHS Defend system, which tracks and shares COVID-19 information.
The cumulative hospitalization fee for the 2022-23 season is 26.0 per 100,000 individuals, the best seen right now of 12 months since 2010-11, the CDC mentioned, primarily based on information from its Influenza Hospitalization Surveillance Community, which incorporates hospitals in choose counties in 13 states.
At this level within the 2019-20 season, simply earlier than the COVID-19 pandemic started, the cumulative fee was 3.1 per 100,000 individuals, the CDC’s information presents.
On the constructive aspect, the proportion of outpatient visits for influenza-like sickness dropped barely to 7.2%, from 7.5% the week earlier than. However these instances from the CDC’s Outpatient Influenza-like Sickness Surveillance Community are usually not laboratory-confirmed, so the info might embody individuals with the flu, COVID-19, or respiratory syncytial virus (RSV).
The variety of confirmed flu deaths for the week of Nov. 27 to Dec. 3 additionally fell barely from the final full week of November, 246 vs. 255, however the variety of pediatric deaths rose from two to seven, and complete deaths in youngsters are already as much as 21 for 2022-23. That’s in comparison with 44 that have been reported throughout all the 2021-22 season, the CDC mentioned.
“To date this season, there have been not less than 13 million sicknesses, 120,000 hospitalizations, and seven,300 deaths from flu,” the company estimated.
