CNN
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With the arrival of spring, the United States is easing out of respiratory virus season, a familiar pattern that has been challenged by Covid-19 for the past four years.
The addition of a novel germ has complicated and expanded respiratory virus season, which was already notoriously difficult to predict. This season had its own unique set of circumstances as public health balanced a significant transition out of the public health emergency with efforts to find a sustainable way forward.
Experts say that focused planning and forecasting efforts helped avoid some of the worst-case scenarios. But there was still a significant number of severe outcomes, and there are still key areas of improvement – especially around vaccination.
“I am grateful that we’re not still in the height of the pandemic, but we saw some really strong, severe respiratory disease season increases, and some groups were incredibly impacted by it,” said Janet Hamilton, executive director of the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists.
There have been at least 29 million illnesses, 320,000 hospitalizations and 20,000 deaths from flu this season, according to US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates. And the burden from Covid-19 has been about twice as large.
At least 42,000 people have died from Covid-19 since the beginning of September, according to provisional data from the CDC, reaching a peak of more than 2,500 deaths during the week ending January 13. Covid-19 hospitalizations also peaked in early January, with more than 35,000 new admissions during the week ending January 6 and more than 570,000 total hospitalizations since September.
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With flu, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and “with the addition of a third virus (COVID-19) that can cause severe disease, even an average respiratory season can place significant strain on our healthcare system,” the CDC’s Center for Forecasting Analytics wrote when it released its first outlook for the season in September. It predicted that this respiratory disease season would be similar to the year before — which saw hospitals more full than at any other point in the pandemic — and worse than pre-pandemic years once again.
In developing the seasonal outlook, the Center for Forecasting Analytics identified a number of key variables could have shifted the season’s outlook for the worse, including a new coronavirus variant, a more severe flu season or overlapping peaks for multiple viruses.
The forecasts have held relatively steady throughout the season, in large part because the viruses spared us from these more severe scenarios. But the US still lagged on one key factor that was fully within human control: vaccination rates.
Only about 23% of US adults and 14% of children have gotten the latest Covid-19 vaccine, according to data from the CDC. And just about half of the population got their flu shot this year, a tick down from recent years.
“The Covid vaccine is a really safe and effective vaccine that’s kind of a miraculous scientific advancement. It’s discouraging to me that so many people seem to be ambivalent or unwilling to get it, and we really need to work on that,” said Dr. Marcus Plescia, chief medical officer for the Association of State and Territorial…
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