Flu season in US hasn't been this bad this early in more than a decade

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11.01.22

Flu season in US hasn't been this bad this early in more than a decade
By the next RSV season, the US may have its first vaccine
As new variants gain traction, early research finds updated Covid boosters may not beat original formula
Taking your blood pressure meds may reduce risk of dementia

Flu season in US hasn't been this bad this early in more than a decade

Flu season is hitting early and hard this year in the United States, with flu hospitalizations worse than usual for this time of year, according to data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

It's been more than a decade – during the H1N1 swine flu pandemic – since flu hospitalization rates have been this high at this point in the season.

The CDC estimates that there have been at least 880,000 illnesses, nearly 7,000 hospitalizations and 360 deaths this season. The first pediatric flu death in the country was reported last week.

Experts tend to look to the Southern Hemisphere to get a sense of how the flu season will go in the Northern Hemisphere.

According to new research, Chile's 2022 flu season started much earlier than usual and brought more hospitalizations than during the pandemic, but the effectiveness of the flu vaccine against hospitalization was estimated to be almost 50%. The researchers say the vaccine used in the US may have similar effectiveness if the same strain of the virus dominates here.

Getting the flu shot is still the best way to protect yourself, experts say. And the best time to do it is now.

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By the next RSV season, the US may have its first vaccine

In addition to flu, the US is facing an early and aggressive RSV (respiratory syncytial virus) season – combining to put pressure on a stressed pediatric hospital system.

The viruses are partly to blame for overwhelmed hospitals and packed emergency rooms, but for some places, the problem is staffing: Many hospitals have empty beds, but not the people to care for someone in them.

Children's National Hospital in Washington, DC, warned last week that "this surge in illness is exacerbated by the national healthcare workforce shortages." A child with a life-threatening emergency will not wait, the hospital said, but "families who come to us with non-urgent issues will experience long waits to be seen."

Although there's a vaccine for flu, there's not one for RSV – but public health experts are hopeful that one could be available as soon as next season.

After decades of disappointment, four new RSV vaccines may be close to review from the US Food and Drug Administration, and more than a dozen others are in testing.

There's also hope around a promising long-acting injection designed to be given right after birth to protect infants from the virus for as long as six months. In a recent clinical trial, the antibody shot was 75% effective at heading off RSV infections that required medical attention.

Dr. Ashish Jha, who leads the White House Covid-19 Response Task Force, told CNN that he's "hopeful" there will be a RSV vaccine by next fall.

As new variants gain traction, early research finds updated Covid boosters may not beat original formula

A gaggle of new coronavirus variants has been gaining ground in the US. Since July, the BA.5 subvariant has dominated Covid-19 infections in the United States, but two new variants, BQ.1 and BQ.1.1, have been spreading quickly.

At the beginning of October, each accounted for about 1% of new infections in the United States, but they have been roughly doubling in prevalence each week. Together, they now account for more than 1 in 4 new Covid-19 infections nationwide, according to CDC data. BA.5 now accounts for 49.6% of new infections in this country.

With respiratory virus season in full swing, public health experts say Covid-19 vaccine boosters are key to protection.

New research finds that the updated booster shots appear to work about as well against the BA.4 and BA.5 Omicron subvariants as the original boosters they replaced, but they don't seem to have much of an edge over the original vaccine.

Two studies from research teams at Harvard and Columbia universities suggest that our bodies have been well-trained to fight the original virus and that boosters mostly reinforce that response.

Getting boosted this fall is still an important way to renew protection, even among people who were previously infected or vaccinated.

But when the researchers compared the immune responses of people who got a booster dose of the original shot to those of people who got the updated bivalent boosters, their responses looked about the same.

Immunologists say a vaccine against two strains may not be better than a single-strain shot because of a phenomenon called immune imprinting. Scientists say imprinting may complicate efforts to stay ahead of new variants as the coronavirus continues to evolve, and it adds urgency to the development of new vaccine technologies to fight the virus.

Taking your blood pressure meds may reduce risk of dementia

High blood pressure, particularly between ages 40 and 65, is a known risk factor for dementia. New research finds that managing it with medication can also help lower that dementia risk.

"What is so exciting about our study is that the data shows that those people who were taking the blood pressure lowering medication had a lower risk of a dementia diagnosis than those taking a matching placebo," said Ruth Peters, study co-author and an associate professor at the University of New South Wales in Australia.

The study combined data from five large randomized, double-blinded clinical trials of more than 28,000 adults with a history of hypertension across 20 countries. The participants had an average age of 69.

Each of the clinical trials compared people taking blood pressure medications with those taking a matching placebo pill and followed them for an average of 4.3 years. Pooling the data, the researchers found that a drop of about 10 mm/Hg on systolic (the upper number) and 4 mm/Hg on diastolic (the lower number) blood pressure readings at 12 months significantly lowered the risk of a dementia diagnosis.

In addition, the researchers found a broad linear relationship between blood pressure dropping and cognitive risk. There was also no sign that blood pressure medications may harm blood flow into the brain at later ages.

The pandemic took a toll on children's education. But before you bust out the multiplication drills, experts suggest taking a breath and trying these recommendations instead.

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Chasing Life

You've heard me say that loneliness and social connection are also factors that affect our overall health and well-being. As the pandemic hit, the potential loss of connection and loneliness has been a concern of mine as well as of other public health experts.

Good news: A new global survey finds that most people around the world are feeling a sense of connection as Covid-19 precautions ease. But still, many need support or help from others – and the factors that drive feelings of connection vary by country.

The survey was conducted by the analytics firm Gallup and Facebook's parent company, Meta. They interviewed at least 2,000 people between April and June in seven countries: Brazil, Egypt, France, India, Indonesia, Mexico and the United States.

A majority of respondents in each country said they felt "very" or "fairly" emotionally connected to others, especially in Egypt, where nearly 9 out of 10 people said they felt connected. Sense of connection was lowest in Brazil (53%), while the US landed in the middle (75%).

However, at least a third of respondents in each country said that they had needed support or help from someone "often" or "sometimes" in the previous month.

Even amid a pandemic, in-person interaction was the most common method for social connection. But in three countries – India, Indonesia and Mexico – more than 1 in 10 people said they had not interacted with anyone in person over the previous week, according to the new poll.

At least a third of people in each country also said they interacted with others on social media on a daily basis, but those individuals were also likely to use other methods – suggesting that technology-based connection supplements but does not replace other types of interaction, the researchers say.

"What is really important to our social health and well-being is that we have meaningful relationships, and that's about the structure, the function and the quality of our relationships with others," said Risa Wilkerson, executive director of Healthy Places by Design. The nonprofit consulting group is focused on building healthy and equitable communities but was not involved in the new survey.

Meaningful relationships are built on trust, Wilkerson said.

The survey found that people who perceived others as untrustworthy or mean felt lonelier than those who felt the people they interacted with were trustworthy or kind.

We know that loneliness can translate directly into poorer health. Those who are lonely may be at increased risk for diabetes and higher blood pressure. The part of the brain that feels pain is also activated by loneliness.

We can all take a step in the right direction to help improve health and well-being by simply saying hello. It won't solve everything, but it's a simple gesture to remind those around us and ourselves that we are part of this larger community, and it will improve our health at the same time.

Have you ever wondered why we get hangry or carsick? It happens when our sensory system gets dysregulated. For some people, this happens all the time, and can be debilitating to their life. We break down the challenges of navigating our world for people with sensory processing disorder.