(Bloomberg) The wave of relief is so strong you can almost hear a collective exhale across the country. With the prospect of a Covid vaccine for young kids edging closer, many U.S. parents are ready for a long-awaited return to normalcy whatever that means to them two years into a pandemic.
One silver lining of the last two winters is that the flu, which typically sends hundreds of thousands of Americans to the hospital each year and causes tens of thousands of deaths, was not as severe as it has been in years past. Peter Palese, a microbiologist and flu expert at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City, said there were 100 times fewer infections, hospitalizations and deaths from influenza last season than in average flu seasons.