Flu Infections On the Rise After Hitting Historic Low Last Winter

KQED's Forum

KQED

Politics, News, News Commentary

4.6 • 656 Ratings

🗓️ 16 November 2021

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Last winter, flu infections in the United States plummeted by more than 99 percent to about 2,000 from about 38 million the year before. The dramatic drop in flu cases led to far fewer deaths as well -- in most years, flu ranks in the top 10 leading causes of death in the U.S. Experts say that last year’s steep decline stems from behaviors meant to suppress the spread of the coronavirus: social distancing, social isolation and masking, as well as vaccinations. Cases of the flu are beginning to increase and more are expected now that the economy has mostly reopened after the pandemic shutdowns. We discuss how the coronavirus changed the game for the spread of influenza and how Americans can keep flu numbers down in the future. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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1:00.4	Welcome back to Forum. I'm Alexis Madrigal.
1:02.5	Last winter, flu infections in the United States plummeted by more than 99%.
1:06.7	In the 2019-2020 flu season, the CDC estimated that 38 million people got the flu.
1:12.5	Last year, the agency only confirmed 2,000 cases.
1:16.6	In most years, flu ranks in the top 10 leading causes of death in the U.S., but very few people died of the flu.
1:21.9	Only pediatric deaths are really required to be reported and appears there was a single death far fewer than previous years.
1:28.5	The social distancing measures that mitigated but could not stop COVID from killing hundreds
1:32.8	of thousands did work just about perfectly for stopping flu.
1:36.9	But as anyone who's been on barred or walked past a bar knows, even the more COVID conservative
1:41.3	areas of the Bay are fully opening back up.
1:44.6	So now the question is, what will this flu season look like?
	...

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