State: Six new flu deaths and a spike in cases

There were six new flurelated deaths in the week ending Jan. 11, bringing the total for the season to 13. And, experts said, the season is far from over.

On Thursday, the state Department of Public Health released the latest flu statistics for Connecticut which showed not only that there had been six new deaths — up from two the week before — but that the number of people who had tested positive for the flu had soared to 3,281 from 1,613 the previous week.

The sole bright spot was that there was a week-to-week dip in the number of people hospitalized with flu-like illness — 171, down from 194 the previous week.

Experts have said this could be a particularly bad flu season. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, so far this season there have been at least 9.7 million flu illnesses, 87,000 hospitalizations and 4,800 deaths from flu nationwide.

Locally, Dr. Zane Saul, chief of infectious disease at Bridgeport Hospital, said there has been a steady stream of flu patients through the hospital.

“We’ve had a lot of outpatients and some inpatients,” he said, adding that, as of Thursday morning, he hadn’t seen any flu-related deaths at the hospital.

The predominant virus circulating this season appears to be a strain of influenza B. Experts said this is a deviation from most seasons, in which a strain of influenza A is typically dominant. According to the CDC, influenza B viruses have not been the predominant virus in the United States since the 1992–93 season.

In Connecticut, influenza B has been the predominant strain as well, as 51 percent of people testing positive for flu so far this season have had influenza B.

Saul confirmed that he had seen many influenza B cases come through the hospital.

“It’s unusual, because we don’t usually see influenza B until late in the season,” he said.

There also have been concerns that the particular subgroup of B that’s circulating might not be a good match with what’s in the vaccine.

Last week, the CDC released a study of a New Orleans hospital where there were 1,268 laboratoryconfirmed influenza B infections, including 23 hospitalizations, from July 31 to Nov. 21, 2019 — a time period when flu activity would typically be low.

Researchers examined the genetic sequencing of flu B strains in 198 patients and found that the majority of them belonged to the recently emerged B/Victoria V1A.3. The strain in the flu shot is the influenza B/Victoria V1A.1 subgroup. However, the report showed that being vaccinated against one B subgroup strain could protect against another.