Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Vicious Flu Season Reveals Weaknesses In Health System That Don't Bode Well For Future Pandemics
Stat: A Severe Flu Season Is Stretching Hospitals Thin. That Is A Very Bad Omen
A tsunami of sick people has swamped hospitals in many parts of the country in recent weeks as a severe flu season has taken hold. In Rhode Island, hospitals diverted ambulances for a period because they were overcome with patients. In San Diego, a hospital erected a tent outside its emergency room to manage an influx of people with flu symptoms. Wait times at scores of hospitals have gotten longer. But if something as foreseeable as a flu season — albeit one that is pretty severe — is stretching health care to its limits, what does that tell us about the ability of hospitals to handle the next flu pandemic? (Branswell, 1/15)
The Washington Post: CDC Says, ‘There's Lots Of Flu In Lots Of Places.’ And It's Not Going Away Anytime Soon.
“Flu is everywhere in the United States right now. There’s lots of flu in lots of places,” said Daniel Jernigan, director of CDC’s influenza division. Of particular concern, he said, is the “very rapid increase” in the number of people hospitalized with laboratory-confirmed cases. The overall hospitalization rate for the week ending Jan. 6 — 22.7 per 100,000 — is almost double that of the previous week. Seven children died in the first week of January, bringing the total number of pediatric deaths to 20. Nearly 6,500 people were hospitalized since the season started Oct. 1. (Sun, 1/12)
Stat: Flu Season Is Shaping Up As One Of The Worst In Years, Officials Say
The entire continental United States is experiencing widespread flu right now, the first time in the 13 years of the current tracking system that that has happened, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Officials said that this flu season is shaping up to be one of the worst in recent years. The rate of flu hospitalizations — the number of people hospitalized with flu per 100,000 — rose sharply last week compared with the previous week. Last week it was 22.7 per 100,000 people; the week before that rate was 13.7. (Branswell, 1/12)
NPR: Flu Season Is Shaping Up To Be Nasty, CDC Says
But the most recent data show that the proportion of people rushing to their doctors to get treated for the flu has already hit 5.8 percent, which is as high as that number gets during the peak of a really bad flu season, the CDC says. In addition, the rate at which Americans are being hospitalized for the flu almost doubled in the last week, to 22.7 for every 100,000 hospitalizations, according to the CDC. (Stein, 1/12)
Bloomberg: Think Flu Season Is Bad? It Might Get Even Worse
The most optimistic assumption among government experts is that the season peaked a few weeks ago, marking the apex of what was already an early and severe outbreak. However, such an outlook requires observers to ignore that outpatient doctor visits have continued to climb (albeit more slowly) in the first week of 2018, yielding the most flu cases ever for this time of the year. (Cortez, 1/16)
The New York Times: ‘Smart Thermometers’ Track Flu Season In Real Time
A company making “smart thermometers” that upload body temperatures to its website claims to be tracking this year’s flu season faster and in greater geographic detail than public health authorities can. This year’s flu season — which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention considers “moderately severe” — has left Missouri and Iowa the “sickest states in the country,” said Inder Singh, the founder of Kinsahealth.com. (McNeil, 1/16)
The New York Times: In The Flu Battle, Hydration And Elevation May Be Your Best Weapons
According to the misery map of influenza activity in the United States, there’s a good chance that you or someone you know has experienced, or will experience, the agony of this year’s strain, H3N2. The map, from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, shows that it is a particularly wicked and widespread virus. And the current flu vaccine seems to be mismatched to the virus — in Australia, where flu season comes earlier, it was estimated to be only 10 percent effective. (Murphy, 1/12)
In local flu news from California, Missouri, Florida, Georgia and Arizona —
Los Angeles Times: Flu Death Toll Rises In California
The number of Californians under 65 who've died of the flu has jumped to 42, compared with nine at the same time last year, state officials said Friday. The flu season, which runs from October through May, typically peaks in February. Public health officials say they don't yet know whether the flu season is peaking earlier than normal, or if this year will be a particularly tough one for the flu. (Karlamangla, 1/12)
San Jose Mercury News: Flu Deaths Rise, Patients Pack Bay Area Emergency Rooms
At hospitals around the Bay Area and across the country, those on the front lines of what is shaping up to be the worst flu season in a decade are struggling to keep up — and wondering whether it will get worse. (Prodis Sulek, 1/14)
St. Louis Public Radio: Number Of Flu Cases Remains High In St. Louis County
The St. Louis County Department of Public Health reports 1,282 cases of influenza in the first week of January. That's compared to 1,304 in the last week of December, a record for the county. (Lewis-Thompson, 1/12)
Miami Herald: Flu Is In All States As CDC Says Disease Widespread
Federal health officials said Friday that influenza is widespread across the continental United States and causing a sharp rise in hospitalizations and visits to doctors’ offices in just the past week — with the H3N2 subtype of the virus appearing to be the most predominant strain, according to Dr. Daniel Jernigan, director of the influenza division at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. ...In Florida, health officials have reported a rise in flu activity, including two child deaths, over the past several weeks, with the northern regions of the state seeing higher incidence of illness. (Chang, 1/12)
Georgia Health News: Flu Slams Georgia, Nation As Season Appears To Peak
Georgia hospitals are seeing “a significant and rapid increase of patients’’ coming in with flu, the Georgia Hospital Association said Saturday. “This has placed an added strain on already limited supplies of IV solutions and medicines.” (Miller, 1/14)
Arizona Republic: Latest Arizona Flu Numbers Show Sharp Rise Over Last Year
Cases of the flu in Arizona have continued to rise through the first week of January, as there were 11,515 confirmed cases from mid-October through Jan. 6, according to the Arizona Department of Health Services. ADHS reported that this is a 938 percent increase from the 1,109 reported cases in 2016-17 for the same period. (Ren, 1/13)
