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'Tragic Case': Woman Dies After Getting Virus Via Lung Transplant - Across America, US - House to vote Friday on $1.9 trillion relief measure; California first to 50,000 virus deaths; flu virtually disappears amid pandemic.
Feb 26, 2021
NEW YORK (AP) February is usually the peak of flu season, with doctors’ offices and hospitals packed with suffering patients. But not this year.
Flu has virtually disappeared from the U.S., with reports coming in at far lower levels than anything seen in decades.
Experts say that measures put in place to fend off the coronavirus mask wearing, social distancing and virtual schooling were a big factor in preventing a “twindemic” of flu and COVID-19. A push to get more people vaccinated against flu probably helped, too, as did fewer people traveling, they say.
Another possible explanation: The coronavirus has essentially muscled aside flu and other bugs that are more common in the fall and winter. Scientists don’t fully understand the mechanism behind that, but it would be consistent with patterns seen when certain flu strains predominate over others, said Dr. Arnold Monto, a flu expert at the University of Michigan.
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This file photo shows influenza vaccine syringes at the L.A. Care Health Plan and Blue Shield of California Promise Health Plan s Community Resource Center s Free Drive-Thru vaccination event in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)
ACROSS AMERICA While the coronavirus pandemic has not come with many silver linings, a particularly surprising one has emerged as the winter months progress.
The flu has virtually disappeared.
Nationally, this is the lowest flu season we ve had on record, Lynnette Brammer of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told The Associated Press.
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Hospitals across the United States have yet to see the usual wave of influenza patients materialize. At Maine Medical Center in Portland, the state s largest hospital, I have seen zero documented flu cases this winter, Dr. Nate Mick, head of the emergency department, told AP.
Why The Flu Season Never Seemed To Happen In 2021
02/26/21 AT 8:32 AM
With the COVID pandemic taking hold across the country, the flu seems to have slipped through the cracks, becoming literally nonexistent.
But health experts have answers for why the flu season is at such a low level this year.
“This is the lowest flu season we’ve had on record,” Lynnette Brammer, head of the Domestic Influenza Surveillance team at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told the Associated Press, according to the agency’s 25-year-old surveillance system.
Health officials told the AP that because the public is wearing masks, observing higher sanitation, and increase their health precautions during the pandemic, they are also preventing the spread of the flu.