Influenza Joins The 1%ers – The One Bit of Good COVID News

By Clive Riddle, February 12, 2021

It’s been widely discussed that influenza spread this flu season is significantly lower, due in great part to COVID-19 induced mask wearing, hand washing, physical distancing and reduced travel by a good portion (but certainly not all) of our population.  

Now that we’re progressing through this influenza season, it’s interesting to do a side-by-side comparison for 2021 vs 2020 as of week five of the calendar year (40 cumulative weeks for the flu season).

Summing up the numbers from the CDC Weekly Surveillance Report totals through the 40^th week of the season for both years, here’s the jaw-dropping difference:

• 2019-2020 Positive Cases through Week 40: 129,997
• 2020-2021 Positive Cases through Week 40:    1,364
• 2019-2020 Flu Test Positivity Rate through Week 40: 17.6% (738,331 tests)
• 2020-2021 Flu Test Positivity Rate through Week 40:   0.2% (593,570 tests)

So this season’s positive cases of influenza are running at 1% of last season!

Comparing the CDC Weekly Surveillance Report charts for these two snapshots in time, stark as the difference appears, actually doesn’t do the comparison justice as the scale for the current season had to be changed for the graph to be readable (the y axis grid for number of positive specimens is in increments of 50 for the 2020-2021 season, vs increments of 2,000 for the 2019-2020 season.)