'What I've seen over the past two weeks tells me that we should all expect to be exposed to influenza.'
It's hard to know what direction this will go, but if things continue on their current trajectory, flu will be more of a concern than COVID for the remainder of the winter. But whether the average severity of disease has increased is hard to know. It could just be that more people than ever are being infected, so that means we'll see more people coming into the hospital and dying. That may be what we’re seeing, as opposed to an increase in disease severity.
SFGATE: The flu vaccine is like the COVID vaccine, where it doesn't do a lot to prevent infection, but it'll reduce disease severity?That’s right. I'd say the flu shot does reduce the risk of infection, but most importantly, it reduces severity and the duration of time you're infected. What I've seen over the past two weeks tells me that we should all expect to be exposed to influenza. The wastewater shows it’s clearly flowing out there.
I’d say that, normally, flu cases rise in mid-December and continue through mid-January, then move downward through March. That’s the normal pattern for flu, but we don’t know if it will peak earlier because it's starting earlier. If it continues to rise at its current rate through January, that's going to be bad.
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