Experts Watch Flu Trends For Remainder Of This Season And Next

CIDRAP: CDC: Flu Sporadic But Increasing In Some Spots; 6th Child Has Died Of Flu
US flu levels are mostly sporadic but some areas are seeing increasing flu activity, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said in its weekly FluView update, which also included a report of the sixth child to die this season of flu. Nationwide during the week ending on Feb 19, 1.5% of patient visits were for influenza-like illness (ILI), well below the national baseline. Just two states—Colorado and Oklahoma—reported moderate ILI activity, with all other states and territories reporting lower levels. The CDC did not specify which areas saw rising flu levels last week. (2/25)

CIDRAP: WHO Advisors Switch 2 Strains For Next Northern Hemisphere Season
World Health Organization (WHO) flu vaccine strain selection advisors met this week to recommend the strains to include for the Northern Hemisphere's 2022-2023 flu season, swapping out the components for the H3N2 and influenza B Victoria lineage strains. In an announcement today, the group recommends that flu shots use an A/Darwin/9/2021-like strain for the H3N2 component, rather than this season's A/Cambodia/e0926360/2020. And for the influenza B Victoria lineage component, the experts recommend using a B/Austria/ 1359417/2021-like strain instead of this season's B/Washington/02/2019. (2/25)

In other public health news —

The Washington Post: AAA Study: Unsafe Drivers Made Up Larger Share Of Motorists During Covid
Although there have been fewer cars on the road nationwide during the coronavirus pandemic, a study released Monday found that younger and riskier drivers were increasingly on the roads during a surge in traffic fatalities across the country. The more dangerous drivers made up a small proportion of drivers overall, but they were likely to take the most risks as traffic levels were down, according to an AAA study. The study sought to understand why traffic deaths rose while driving was down at least 20 percent during much of 2020. During that time, crashes involving impairment, speeding, red-light running, aggressiveness and non-seatbelt usage spiked to their highest level in more than a decade, AAA said. (George, 2/28)

The Wall Street Journal: Sperm Banks Struggle To Recruit Black Donors And Other Donors Of Color
A few years after her marriage broke up, Aisha Jenkins started thinking about having a baby on her own. She used a leading sperm bank whose catalog contained hundreds of potential donors from which to choose. But when Ms. Jenkins, who is Black, narrowed the search down to Black donors, only six remained. “That can’t be right,” said Ms. Jenkins, a 46-year-old project manager for a software company who lives in the Washington, D.C., metro area. When she realized how difficult it is to find a Black sperm donor, Ms. Jenkins said she expanded her search, adding, “I knew there were other colors in the spectrum that would give me a brown child.” She now has two daughters, ages 7 and 2 1/2, using different donors—one with Egyptian ancestry, the other with Indian ancestry. (Dockser Marcus, 2/26)

AP: University Starts Deer Cull On Detroit-Area Campus
A statement from the school on Tuesday said the objective was to “protect ... biodiversity … to help reduce health risks ... due to tick exposure and to reduce car-deer collisions near campus.” The university considered alternatives, including relocating deer, but concluded other methods either wouldn’t work or weren’t permitted. It is the third cull of deer by the university in recent years. There were others in 2015 and 2018. (2/27)

AP: Rash-Causing Moth Spreading Due To Warming, Scientists Find
A forest pest that bedevils Maine residents and tourists with hairs that cause an itchy rash appears to be spreading due to warming temperatures, a group of scientists has found. The browntail moth is a scourge in America’s most forested state, where it defoliates trees and causes a rash in humans that resembles poison ivy. The hairs of the caterpillars, which have been the subject of an outbreak in the state for about seven years, can also cause respiratory trouble. The growth and spread of the moth is tied to increasingly warm weather, especially in the fall, the scientists wrote recently in the journal Environmental Entomology. And, unfortunately, climate trends suggest upcoming years could be even worse, they wrote. (Whittle, 2/26)

On developments concerning abortion —

Politico: Abortion Pill Use Spikes In Texas As Thousands Of Patients Circumvent State’s Ban
Texans have been ordering abortion pills online at record rates in the wake of the state’s law banning the procedure after six weeks of pregnancy, according to a new study published Friday in JAMA Network Open. Orders for the drugs from the international nonprofit Aid Access spiked 1,180 percent in the first week after the Texas law took effect in September, increasing from about 11 purchases per day to more than 137 per day. And though orders decreased over the next few months, researchers found that they remained 175 percent higher than before the Texas law took effect. (Miranda Ollstein, 2/25)

Bloomberg: Texas At-Home Abortion Pill Requests Spiked Following New Limits
The study provides yet another dataset detailing the impacts of Texas’s near total ban on abortions. The Texas law, which went into effect on Sept. 1, bans almost all abortions after fetal cardiac activity can be detected, usually about six weeks into a pregnancy. Not only have more Texans been looking to pill deliveries by mail, but they have also been going to neighboring states. Planned Parenthood said this week that its clinics in Oklahoma, New Mexico, Kansas, Colorado and Missouri saw a nearly 800% increase in abortion patients from Texas from Sept. 1 through Dec. 31, compared with the year before. (Hagan, 2/25)

Miami Herald: Florida Bill Could Prohibit Abortions In Many Birth-Defect Cases 
By the squat rental house at the back of the four-acre plot, past the horse paddock but not quite to the barn, a sapling grows. It’s obscured by the toys: a toddler-sized plastic car, a stomp rocket, all types of miniature sports equipment. It’s dwarfed by the American flag, weather-worn and a little too big for its place, but hung with pride by the door. The sapling, a sweet bay magnolia, has branches that look more like twigs. It’s only ever sprouted one flower — last spring. Nathaniel’s tree. His parents, Danielle and Jason Tallafuss, planted it on Nov. 1, 2020, one day after their son’s expected due date. (Wilson, 2/26)