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Lakewood Times

Lakewood Times

Lakewood Times

    Flu Cases Are at An All-Time Low

    Flu Cases Are at An All-Time Low

    As the third week of February comes around the corner, flu cases would normally be thriving, but this year has an abnormally low amount of cases. Usually, at this time of year the flu map would be covered in red, meaning a high rate of flu cases, but this year the map is flourishing in green.

    Lynnette Brammer, who heads the CDC’s domestic flu surveillance program, does not want to declare victory just yet. She says, “I’d hold off for a little while longer before saying we are completely out of the woods, the flu can do odd things.”

    We may not be out of the woods as Lynette Brammer mentioned, but the numbers are promising. At this time last year, 45 out of the 50 states were in the red zone, and on top of this hundreds of thousands would normally be hospitalized, but this year only 155 hospitalized cases have been reported.

    Experts hypothesize that cases are at an all-time low because of the precautions that people are taking to stop the spread of Coronavirus. This is because Coronavirus and the flu spread in similar ways, being through tiny particles of mucus and saliva when people cough or sneeze.

    While this may be due to the fact that people do not want to enter hospitals at the risk of catching the Coronavirus, Brammer believes that flu testing is accurately capturing the spread.

    It will be interesting to see how the flu fluctuates over the next couple of weeks and I can only hope that the spread is contained as it has been this far.

     

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