The latest influenza report from the Australian Department of Health and Aged Care shows an interesting pattern to how the influenza season in Australia went this year. Normally, influenza peaks between June and September, with the first indications of the flu arriving in late April or May. The end of the influenza season in Australia (as in most of the Southern Hemisphere) is in late September or early October. (In the United States, which is in the Northern Hemisphere, the flu is usually active between October and May.)
The interesting pattern I’m referring to for Australia is the steep rise of the epidemic curve (a graphical display of the number of cases) that begins in May and reaches its peak in early June. From there, influenza activity fell back to normal levels by late August. Figure 4 in the for Australia shows this:
Notice that the 2020 and 2021 influenza seasons were almost non-existent, as was the case in the United States and most countries where the response to the COVID-19 pandemic included social distancing, school closures, and stay-at-home orders.
The paradigm for influenza surveillance in the United States is that “.” This is because, year after year, influenza activity in the United States has mirrored influenza activity in Australia, with the same strains of influenza that affected Australia in what is the summer of the United States affecting the United States in the fall.
For the , public health authorities are advising everyone who can get an influenza vaccine to do so. Influenza vaccines may not be as effective as other vaccines, but anything is better than nothing. And, similar to what the COVID-19 vaccines have shown, people who get the influenza vaccine are less likely to develop severe disease if they do contract the virus. In order to prevent public health authorities are also encouraging those who qualify for a COVID-19 booster to get it along with the influenza vaccine.
To find a vaccine near you, please visit , where you can enter your ZIP code and be presented with a variety of locations to get immunized.
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