Get ready for a bad flu season

( next year)

As per the most recent flu report issued by the state, there have been a grand total of 12 influenza- related hospitalizations in Connecticut and exactly one flu- related death since the flu season began in October.

To put that into context, there were a total of 3,506 flu- related hospitalizations in Connecticut two years ago, and 88 deaths. The year before that, there were 3,895 hospitalizations and 184 deaths.

We’re a bit less than halfway through this year’s flu season but, if that trajectory holds, there will be less incidence of flu this year than any year since they started tracking it.

The reasons why might seem obvious. The mitigation strategies we’re using against COVID- 19 work against other respiratory illnesses.

It’s interesting to note that COVID- 19 has been spreading despite those mitigation measures. There have been 11 people in the hospital with the flu in Connecticut since October, and more than 12,000 COVID- related hospitalizations since March.

This speaks, some researchers say, to how much more transmissible COVID is, and how much more virulent.

“It says that it’s more contagious and that it’s less forgiving of any lapses of these types of prevention measures,” David Hooper, chief of the infection control unit at Massachusetts General Hospital, told USA Today.

Also, get ready for a possibly bad flu season next year. When you get the flu, you become immune ( at least for a time). But nobody’s getting the flu this year.

“Because of the current restrictions and precautions everyone is taking this season, far fewer people will be infected or exposed to the flu virus, and therefore won’t become immune to certain strains of the virus,” Klein said. “So the number of people who may have more severe infections next year is likely to be greater because immunity will be lower.”