Non-Covid Pneumonia And Influenza Mortality -- Seasonal Flu -- October 30, 2023

Locator: 45865COVID.

From the CDC, most recent data.

Most interesting: the spike this past year (B) following Covid lockdown compared too the year before anyone even heard of Covid (A). 

From The WSJ:

There’s some good news about flu season this year. Doctors and scientists don’t expect the worst.

The flu season in the Southern Hemisphere, where the cold-weather illness period wraps up as we head into ours, often serves as a harbinger of what’s to come for us. There, cases picked up a little earlier than usual in some countries but didn’t result in an especially large number of hospitalizations and deaths, say public health experts and doctors.

Also encouraging: The components in this year’s flu vaccine are a good match to the predominant strain so far. One study found that the current version of the flu vaccine reduced the risk for flu-related hospitalizations by 52% in the Southern Hemisphere, a pretty strong indicator of effectiveness.