Australia’s Intense Flu Season Raises Alarm for the US

CNN reported that even though June has only just begun, flu season is already on the minds of US scientists. They are closely monitoring Australia, where the flu season began earlier than usual for this time of year. In some regions of the nation, the number of illnesses is on the rise, with youngsters accounting for most cases. Those flu tendencies can be a sign of future trends in the US. 

As is typical for this time of year, there is currently little flu activity in the US. Although the Covid-19 pandemic made the flu season less predictable, people typically wait to become sick until approximately October, and doctor’s offices don’t start getting busy until around December or February. 

According to the Australian Department of Health and Aged Care, cases started to rise “sharply” in early May in Southern Hemisphere, which is currently winter. The agency reported that the start of the season is earlier than in past years, and case counts are higher than the five-year average but lower than at this point in 2019 and 2022. 

Scientists are also keeping an eye on the number of pediatric cases. This year, more kids are becoming sick in Australia than adults. American scientists frequently go to Australia and a few other nations when attempting to predict how severe the flu will become in the US throughout the autumn and winter. Flu is a virus that must be closely watched because it injures many people and costs the country a lot of money. But given that it is seasonal, everybody experiences it occasionally; some individuals may downplay its importance. 

“We keep a close eye on what occurs in the Southern Hemisphere at this time of year to see how their flu season progresses. Yes, we do, though not always as a prediction of what will occur here in the upcoming season. We constantly monitor it all summer long,” said Carrie Reed, director of the Influenza Division of the Epidemiology and Prevention Branch of the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention. 

According to CDC estimates, between 2010 and 2020, the flu was responsible for 140,000 to 710,000 hospitalizations, 9 million to 41 million illnesses, and 12,000 to 52,000 fatalities per year. According to the organization, just among adults, hospitalization and outpatient visits cost the US $10.4 billion in direct costs. 

According to Reed, the CDC has been engaged in a formal forecasting initiative with several academic institutions and private businesses specializing in flu forecasting and modeling for roughly ten years. The information is gathered through clinical labs, ERs, hospital networks, and death records. 

Since the pandemic, vaccinations have become difficult to administer. Covid-19, not only for Covid vaccines but also for other life-saving shots, contributed to what the World Health Organisation dubbed the “largest continued backslide in vaccinations in three decades” for children.

The fact that fewer children had their flu shots may be contributing to the high number of flu cases among Australian children, according to a spokesman for the Department of Health and Aged Care of the agency. Therefore, while Reed and her colleagues will monitor Australia’s flu statistics and perform their calculations, it still needs to be determined what the US’s flu season 2023 will bring.