Who isn’t sick right now?
Your friend, your professor, your neighbor. Maybe not all of them, but chances are someone you know is or has been down with something. Which isn’t that big of a deal. It is flu season after all. It happens every year.
That’s not really true though, is it? These past couple of years didn’t seem that extreme in terms of the flu. Indeed, not many of us remember even thinking about the flu since 2019.
Until now, three years later. But why does it feel so much worse this time?
If we look at the numbers, it is worse. “It looks very similar to some of the worst seasons in the past 10 years,” says John Huddleson, an influenza tracker at the Bedford Lab at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center. He compares the current flu season to that of 2014-2015, one of the worst in the past decade. During that season, the hospitalization rate reached 9 per 100,000 people, compared to the highest mark of this season, 8.7.
There are a number of things at play here, but the primary factor is, of course, the pandemic. Examining the rate of a more recent season helps us understand. During the 2021-2022 season, the highest weekly hospitalization rate was 1.2. This is 86% lower than the current season.
It’s no coincidence these extremely low rates are during the onset and peak of the COVID-19 pandemic. We are all painfully aware of the drastic changes made to our lifestyles during that period. Mask mandates, social distancing, staying at home and frequent hand washing quickly became the new normal.
And they worked. These methods all proved to be effective in abating the transmission of COVID-19. Not just COVID-19, however. While the majority of the world was wearing masks and social distancing, the flu was largely absent.
And though the pandemic is not a thing of the past, it’s probably at a “transition point,” according to the World Health Organization (WHO). WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said that “the world is in the best position it has been in – due to diagnostics, vaccines and treatments – to beat back COVID.”
Additionally, the Biden administration announced on January 30 that the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency will end in May.
As such, many of the aforementioned safety measures taken to fight the pandemic, like wearing masks, social distancing and washing your hands are no longer widely observed or even federally mandated. Many people report feeling “pandemic fatigue,” a lack of motivation to follow recommended safety measures and a general sense of negativity and exhaustion regarding the pandemic.
This halt in following safety measures and pandemic precautions has allowed for the forgotten sickness, the flu, to return at full force. Additionally, the smaller amount of people who contracted the flu during the pandemic years has left them more susceptible to contracting it now, according to the CDC. It’s possible the degree is even more extreme if we consider the eagerness people are to revert back to the way life was before, exacerbating transmission.
It may be worth mentioning the severe winter weather that’s occurred this season. Sickness thrives in cold weather due to our bodies’ decreased ability to fight off infection. According to a study from the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, a 9° F reduction in temperature kills nearly 50% of the billions of virus and bacteria-fighting cells in the nostrils.
When all of these factors are compounded, the lack of infection safety measures, potential “pandemic fatigue” and record cold temperatures, it’s no surprise the flu has been able to multiply so much.
Thankfully, we may be over the worst of the season. The past few weeks have not increased as quickly as the weeks before then, a good indicator that we’re over the season’s peak. Winter will be making its way out soon, and as it does, so should the flu.
