Experts: Don't count on mild flu season amid COVID-19

Experts: Don't count on mild flu season amid COVID-19 "The message is be prepared for a bad flu season on top of a bad COVID season," says Edward Belongia, MD. CIDRAP

The Southern Hemisphere had a very light flu season in 2020, with Australia seeing only 315 cases over its winter, down 99.8% from the 130,000 cases seen in most years. But flu experts say that, while the low numbers could portend a similar scenario in the Northern Hemisphere, it would be a foolhardy not to prepare for high caseloads this winter.

Edward Belongia, MD, an infectious disease epidemiologist at Marshfield Research Institute in Wisconsin, said that he doesn't think anyone can predict how severe the flu season will be or how it will co-circulate with COVID-19, because much is still unknown about the novel coronavirus and there is no clear relationship between events in the hemispheres.

"We don't have many [non-influenza] pandemics to study," he said. "The message is be prepared for a bad flu season on top of a bad COVID season."\

Craig Dalton, MD, MMSc, who founded Flutracking.net, an online surveillance system tracking flu-like symptoms in 150,000 people across Australia and New Zealand, attributes low rates of flu—and COVID-19—in those countries to their swift and strict coronavirus lockdowns, border closures, massive testing efforts with 24-hour average turnarounds, and rapid contact tracing and quarantine. ...