The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released new flu data Friday, despite the Trump administration’s shutdown of nearly all scientific communications from federal health agencies.
The information was not reported as usual by the CDC, in a weekly analysis of flu activity called FluView, but was added to a section focused on respiratory illnesses in general.
Trends show flu activity remains high and increasing in many parts of the country, with increases in the number of flu cases detected in wastewater samples, the number of positive flu tests, and related emergency room visits to the flu.
For the week ending January 18, the percentage of positive flu tests was 25%, up from 19% the week before.
Emergency departments are also seeing increasing numbers of people with the flu, including babies, older children and adolescents. Of all emergency room visits, 5.2% were flu-related and were on pace to match the increase seen in hospitals before the winter holidays.
Hospitals rely on the CDC’s weekly update to prepare for what lies ahead, especially since the flu is notoriously unpredictable.
“We look at data like this to see what additional resources we might need to bring in,” such as additional nurses or isolation beds, said Dr. Aaron Glatt, chief of infectious diseases at Mount Sinai South Nassau in New York. “That gives us some idea of what’s going to happen.”
The flu information released Friday does not provide the level of detail normally found in its weekly FluView, such as details on flu strains and whether antiviral drugs can still treat them.
And that didn’t make it easy to compare rates of flu spread in different regions.
“Communicable diseases can spread suddenly and quickly,” said Leighton Ku, director of the Center for Health Policy Research at George Washington University. “It may be a situation where the flu slows down in one jurisdiction while speeding up in another. »
The FluView report also typically includes information on the spread of the H5N1 virus, or avian flu. In the absence of the report, the CDC has chosen to update its page on the ongoing avian flu outbreak. No new human cases have been reported, despite a growing number of wild birds sickened by the virus.
Dr. Robert Murphy, executive director of the Robert J. Havey Institute for Global Health at Northwestern University, said it was crucial that the CDC and other federal health agencies be free to report on the rapidly evolving avian flu epidemic.
“It literally changes by the hour,” he said. “Are we supposed to forget this?”
Representatives from the Department of Health and Human Services and the CDC did not respond to direct questions about the availability of the weekly FluView, but repeated a previous statement in response:
“HHS has imposed a pause on mass communications and public appearances that are not directly related to emergencies or are not essential to preserving health,” the statement said. “There are exceptions for announcements that HHS divisions consider mission critical, but they will be made on a case-by-case basis.”
A memo sent to CDC staff members earlier this week suggested the pause would continue until February 1.
The fact that the CDC did not release its usual flu report on Friday should not be a major cause for concern, experts said. And it’s not unprecedented that the FluView is delayed. It had already been released after its scheduled time due to the National Day of Mourning for former President Jimmy Carter.
“A single piece of data in a huge data stream is probably not the end of the world,” Glatt said. “However, I worry if this continues. We need to know, are we going up? Where are we going to go down?
