if you're like me you are trying
desperately not to catch anything in the
next few weeks to protect your vacation
plans please jesus but
these days we have more to worry about
than covet the flu is going around too
in an unusually long season it has been
four decades since the flu season peaked
this late in the year
why is this happening now how much does
covet have to do with it and what should
we know about getting a flu shot at this
point in the season let's get into all
that with professor robert gary a
virologist from tulane university
professor gary welcome to the program
pleasure to be here
so why is this happening why is this flu
season peaking so much later than usual
you know nobody knows for sure
but there are a couple possibilities
that could explain it the
strain of the virus has probably changed
a little bit uh the vaccine that we were
all given or a lot of us were given
maybe doesn't protect against the
current way the virus is presenting
itself quite as well as it did when that
vaccine
was made
and then the other reason is probably
coveted
a lot of the restrictions about uh
meeting with people in groups and
wearing masks and things have been
relaxed in a lot of places and but it
turns out that those same
um
interventions that were helping to
prevent the spread of cova 19 also help
prevent the spread of flu and if we take
those away then there's an opportunity
for all these respiratory viruses to
spread
you mentioned this strain of the flu and
there we can see the positive test rate
by week that blue line on the bottom
is the current flu season and those gray
lines behind it are previous flu seasons
from the beginning to the number of
weeks in as the gray lines get lighter
the flu seasons go back in time so it's
kind of like you're looking straight
ahead back in time and we can see how
the peak is going up as those previous
seasons had already kind of ended is
this strain an uncommon one is it just
one that this particular flu shot was
not designed for what do we know about
this current flu strain yeah it's called
the uh h3n2 strain and um it's a common
strain of uh influenza virus it hasn't
really caused a pandemic since i was in
high school back in you know 1968 or 69
um so-called hong kong flu
but it's you know a modern version of of
that virus and it's
basically you know a virus we see pretty
commonly
what's unusual this year is the peak
that's like usually the flu as you saw
in those curves peaks sometime in
february or march and a peak in may is
uh is pretty unusual
well take a look at the positivity rate
of this flu season because there are
kind of two peaks if you take a look at
the graphic it looked like the season
was going to peak in december and then
it came down and then it went back up in
like mid-april there's a zoomed in graph
from this year just october to april so
it kind of went up went down and then
psych and turned right back around and
went back up what's up with the two
peaks is there is there any rationale
for why that would happen
i mean something happened about that
time uh people started meeting with
other people in groups uh going to
concerts uh holding parties things like
that uh you know conditions where you
know we hadn't seen in the past you know
a couple of years the coveted years and
it just turned out that that was an
opportunity for
all respiratory viruses to spread so you
know we got the flu we got this strain
that you know is pretty good and uh you
know we're seeing we're seeing surges of
cases in in places like new mexico and
colorado for the most part
yeah if you look at the week ending
april 30th in terms of flu in the u.s
it's pretty apparent that new mexico got
hit really really hard and then colorado
was not far behind now
i guess me naively would think you have
large gatherings of people you're going
to expect to see spikes of different
respiratory diseases thereafter you know
coachella was just in in california and
we're going to have all kinds of events
all over the country we got lollipalooza
coming up in the chicago area new york
is going to have a slew of events this
summer
but i i don't know if it tracks that
directly like i can't think of why new
mexico would be the target right now
absolutely
it's hard to track it that closely we
don't know i mean the virus just
happened to get into a you know a few
populations it could have been any type
you know school
concerts other types of meetings it just
got into a group of people and then it
was able to spread you know across that
strip across that state
and you know it could happen to any
state any area any time
we just don't know how to predict that
have we ever seen curves like this
before that are this late in the year
that might give us an indication of how
long it would take for us to get back to
kind of more of a normal rhythm
with with the flu maybe like a few years
out from more of the the worst of covert
presuming we don't have another major
covet strain is there any outlook for
when this might normalize based on
historical flu seasons
you know it really is difficult to say i
mean covet may have a long lasting
impact on us i don't think we're quite
out of the copenhagen pandemic either
we're seeing some new strains of that
virus the ba2 12 1 strain that's
circulating you know in the you know in
the northeast but also in the midwest
now we're starting to see cases you know
rise there so you know we're not out of
that pandemic yet will it have a
long-term impact impact on other
respiratory diseases well certainly in
in the past two years it's had a
dampening effect on flu i mean the
numbers of cases of flu
in 2020 and 2021 were extremely low i
mean that was just almost mind-boggling
that people like myself who who follow
and track these kinds of things and so
that was that was highly unusual
but it most likely had to do with people
wearing masks and you know and
restricting
their interactions with other people now
that that's been relaxed a little bit
yeah viruses like flu and you know
certainly cyrus kobe 2 you know are
having a bit more of a free reign
soros kobe 2 the technical name for
covet 19. so before i have to let you go
what should we do i mean is it too late
to get a flu shot is it worth getting
one should we stick to the same kind of
covert restrictions we had before i mean
you know people are going to travel i
would really really like to take my
vacation
i'm crossing my fingers and toes please
don't cancel my vacation
i mean i think we need to wait and see
what happens with some of the coveted
strains and the like um you know let's
hope for the best that the cases don't
go up too far what you can do though
even this late is to get a influenza
vaccine it's not too late the pharmacies
will still give them to you uh if you
haven't gotten your uh
you know cover 19 shots either you can
take those both the same time so even
though it's late even though it's
unusual
i think it's still a good idea if you
haven't gotten vaccinated to to get both
of those vaccines and the most likely
thing if you get the vaccines is that
that will keep you out of the hospital
and keep you from dying from either one
of these uh you know pretty severe
respiratory diseases
professor robert gary of tulane
university appreciate you breaking this
down for us tonight thank you very much
my pleasure joshua thank you
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