Here are some excerpts:
"After a few weeks of nosediving, things are, unfortunately, stabilizing. Does it feel like this respiratory season is never-ending? That’s because this is the longest respiratory season since the beginning of the pandemic.
"Here is your state of affairs.
"Influenza-like illnesses: High and plateauing"The climate of respiratory health in the United States (coined 'influenza-like illnesses' by CDC) remains above the epidemic threshold and has plateaued due to children returning to school after the holidays.
"We are going into our 13th week of being above 'epidemic' levels. Last year, our entire season was 11 weeks. We are going into our 13th week of being above 'epidemic' levels. Last year, our entire season was 11 weeks.
"Covid-19: High and… stabilizing?
"Nationally, Covid-19 in wastewater is still 'high.' Unfortunately, levels have stabilized in all regions except the South, where exponential growth started again. This could be a “noise” signal due to unstable reporting or a “real” signal due to, perhaps, it getting colder later in the South.
"Covid-19 hospitalizations are slowing down, too, after a few weeks of nosediving. Are Covid-19 hospitalizations higher than flu? Well… it depends on which CDC graph you look at, which is confusing. The top graph below shows Covid-19 hospitalizations winning while the bottom shows flu winning.
"Why the different data stories? The sources are different. The top graph is from all hospitals mandated to report due to the pandemic, and the bottom is a few hospitals representing only 10% of the population from mostly urban areas. This is probably causing two things to happen:
Vaccine effect. Urban places have more Covid-19 vaccinated than rural; thus Covid-19 hospitalizations are lower on the bottom graph than the top.
Case definition differences may be happening. The data in the top graph is reported by hospitals, which may differ from the bottom graph, reported by a review of lab records.
"I trust the top graph more. Unfortunately, this data story will stop in April because the reporting mandate is ending. Hospitals hate reporting this metric, but if you ask me, I don’t care. We need this data.
"Flu: High and stabilizing
"Influenza is still surging.
"RSV: Moderate but nosediving
"RSV continues to go down and down. Good riddance. "
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It's infuriating that the COVID data we need is just not forthcoming -- deliberately, I've always thought. Luckily we have people like Dr. Jetelina, Dr. Ruth Ann Crystal, and Julia Doubleday to keep us informed.
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