Flu cases in Louisiana remain high | Coronavirus

Public health officials warn that despite some slight declines in cases, Louisiana remains in the midst of one of the worst respiratory disease seasons in years, with a swarm of flu, COVID and other viruses affecting the ‘state before vacation trips.

Five of nine Louisiana regions rated ‘high’ or ‘very high’ for influenza activity in the weekly status reportmaking it the busiest flu season in the last five years.

Louisiana’s four southeastern regions — including New Orleans, Baton Rouge, the North Shore and the River Parishes — were seeing fewer cases and mostly remained in the “moderate” range. The Acadiana region was among those rated “high”.

“Over the past three or four weeks, we’ve really flipped one week, one week down,” said Dr. Joe Kanter, state health officer at the Louisiana Department of Health. “We’re just as likely to go up next week as we continue to go down.”

The rate of patients in Louisiana presenting to the hospital with flu symptoms during the first week of December was about 8.42% compared to 7.2% nationally. At the same time last year, patient visits in Louisiana due to influenza were 2.35%.

Of all the tests taken for the flu, nearly one in five comes back positive in Louisiana this year. Last year it was about one in twenty.

“It’s rumbling all over the South, really loud, and we’re seeing a lot of it in emergency departments,” said Susan Hassig, an epidemiologist at Tulane University. “The flu virus variant that’s been circulating right now is known to make people really sick.”

The dominant flu strain currently circulating is the same one that caused record death rates during the 2018 and 2019 flu seasons, Hassig said. The flu vaccine, which is formulated each year based on the flu groups most likely to cause illness, matches well with this year’s dominant strain, and Hassig has encouraged vaccination to protect against any incoming flare-ups.

Flu season usually lasts until February.

Shortage of Tamiflu complicates children’s recovery

Flu-like illness is by far highest among children, according to state data. Although the number of children testing positive for the flu is about a third of what it was in October at New Orleans Children’s Hospital, Chief Medical Officer Dr. Mark Kline said the current level of respiratory disease still exceeds previous years.

“The numbers are much, much higher,” Kline said. “They are even higher this year than they usually are.”

With the cold weather finally making its way to the state, pushing people indoors and the holidays rounding people up and dragging them to airports, viruses will have a chance to keep circulating.

According to AAA, this holiday season is expected to be the third busiest for travel since 2000, when the company began tracking travel volume. The number of air passengers flying to New Orleans during Thanksgiving increased by 12% this yearalmost back to pre-pandemic levels. AAA plans a similar resumption of travel for Christmas and New Years.

“Is this going to re-energize these epidemics?” Kline said. “He’s the joker in all of this now.”

The nationwide shortage of Tamiflu, the only approved antiviral for young children, is making it harder for children to recover from the flu. The parents are calling the hospital saying they can’t find a pharmacy that will fill it, Kline said.

“We have a lot of very sick children under five, and now we don’t have Tamiflu available for a lot of them,” Kline said. “We seem to let our kids down every time. Instead of children first, it is children last.

Infectious disease experts point to a few years without exposure to disease at the height of the pandemic as the reason so many viruses are on the rise now.

“People were sheltered between masking and social distancing,” said Dr. Mark Alain Dery, director of innovation at Access Health Louisiana and physician at West Jefferson Medical Center. “We haven’t had our annual dose, which primes the pump a bit and keeps our immune system intact.”

COVID crawls

Although the flu is the most prevalent respiratory virus in Louisiana, it’s not the only thing circulating. A so-called tripledemic – a collision of influenza, RSV and COVID – is sweeping the United States

Louisiana felt less pressure than some states because RSV, or respiratory syncytial virus, was high in that state over the summer, Kanter said, offering some protection in the winter months. But COVID-related hospitalizations are going up.

“It certainly looks like we’re entering another wave,” Kanter said. “We have added 100 inpatients over the past two and a half weeks.”

There were 255 people hospitalized with COVID in Louisiana on Wednesday, according to the most recent report. A month earlier, there were 94.

An uptick in COVID isn’t the crisis it once was due to immunity to earlier diseases and vaccines, and health officials feel better prepared for a surge in disease. But if rates of other diseases rise, it could put strain on the healthcare system.

“Every push makes me more confident,” Kanter said. “The question will be if our flu rates continue to rise, if RSV picks up, will we be able to overcome them all together.”