Figures are indicating that in the United States more people are falling seriously ill with the flu than with COVID-19.
Figures
According to The Globe and Mail, “Figures collected by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that the weekly rate of hospitalizations for the flu has reached 5.9 per 100,000 people, a level not seen at this time of year in more than a decade.
For COVID-19, however, the rate has fallen to 4.3 per 100,000, far below the January high of 34.8. The figures for both the flu and COVID-19 are for the week ending Dec. 3, the most recent data available.
The dwindling severity of COVID-19 comes after President Joe Biden said in September that “the pandemic is over.”
Numbers of COVID-19 cases in the U.S. have been on the rise in recent weeks, with nearly 5,000 daily hospital admissions. But for COVID-19 to qualify as a pandemic virus, “the threshold would be that it is still causing hospitals to be completely disrupted,” said Amesh Adalja, an infectious disease specialist at Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. “And I don’t think COVID-19 has been doing that for some time.”
We have “ceased seeing hospitals being under siege by the virus,” he added.”
The case of COVID-19 now
They also said, “The decreasing severity of COVID-19 is a result of broad exposure to the virus and effective ways to treat it. A large percentage of the world’s population has now either been infected by COVID-19 or immunized against it.
In November, the World Health Organization reported a 90-per-cent drop in COVID-19 deaths, compared to nine months before. More than 70 per cent of the world’s population has now been vaccinated in some form.
New variants emerging today “are much easier to handle because of the immunity in the population,” Dr. Adalja said.”
For more updates on pharma and life science, Click here
