This year’s flu season has been historically mild, with flu-related hospitalizations at their lowest level since the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention started tracking the data.
“This is lower than average for this point in the season and lower than rates for any season since routine data collection began in 2005, including the low severity 2011-12 season,” the CDC said.
Only 165 flu-related hospitalizations were recorded between Oct. 1 and Feb. 6, compared to 400,000 who were hospitalized during the 2019-2020 flu season, which also recorded 22,000 deaths.
Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease specialist at Vanderbilt University, said that part of the reason for such low flu numbers could be the lack of children attending in-person school amid the coronavirus pandemic.
“COVID can be transmitted very readily among adults, very contagious, but flu, I think, really needs children to spread it around amongst themselves and then seed, if you will, the adults in their home and their neighbors,” Schaffner said, adding that children produce more of the flu virus than adults.
“Children are generally thought of as having the distribution franchise for the influenza virus,” Schaffner said. “They produce much more virus. They shed more virus for longer periods of time.”
Flu vaccinations rose 2.6% this year due to 52% of people six months and older receiving the vaccine, but the “flu has been essentially nonexistent” this season, Schaffner said.
Schaffner warned that the next flu season could be much worse, with the lack of spread this year, meaning many people won’t have naturally built up immunity next fall.
“Many of us didn’t get a boost from encountering the flu virus this year, and so we haven’t had a chance to build up our antibodies,” he said. “All the more important to get vaccinated this fall.”
