NYT "This Flu Season Is Now the Worst in Years. Heres Why."

[RKP5637]

Interesting article!

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/18/health/flu-season-facts.html

Updated on Feb. 9, 2018.
How bad is this flu season?

It is now as bad as any flu season since the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention adopted stringent surveillance methods in the early 2000s. The infection rate is now 7.7 percent, which equals the peak of the 2009 “swine flu” pandemic. (The rate is a measure of what percentage of all patients visiting doctors in a particular week had flulike symptoms, including a fever of at least 100 degrees.)

Even more worrying, the hospitalization rate is the highest that the C.D.C. has ever recorded at this point in the season. It has now substantially surpassed that of the lethal 2014-2015 season, during which 710,000 Americans were hospitalized and 56,000 died.

“I wish there were better news this week,” said Dr. Anne Schuchat, acting director of the C.D.C., “but almost everything we’re looking at is bad news.”

[Rollo]

1. Once more the CDC and media gloss over the root cause...

The root cause is the main way flu vaccines are manufactured.

The virus is grown in chicken embryos (eggs).

The H3N2 strain mutates in the egg media and changes its external profile. This changed profile elicits a human immune response to the mutated virus, not to the virus that circulates in human populations. I guess it's great for protecting chickens, but it's only 10% effective for people.

The CDC and vaccine mfgs have known about this problem but haven't done much to fix it. The fix is to grow the virus in non-egg media, but to switch over to that involves expense.

As a result this year some 70% of flu cases are H3N2.

Enjoy.

[RKP5637]

2. Thanks for the additional information!!!

[eggplant]

11. A research article about this.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5667890/

[PatSeg]

22. Thanks for the link

[RKP5637]

28. Interesting!!! Thanks!!! n/t

[dixiegrrrrl]

13. I think you answered my question of why bird and pig genes show up in flu victims...

or not.

The article talks of the 2009 swine flu epidemic...

a completely new H1N1 virus containing bird and pig genes for which no one had immunity.

but how does that virus even get the animal genes in the wild?

It sounds as if viruses like that are created in labs... this year some 70% of flu cases are H3N2. (from egg media)

[RandomAccess]

14. Ooh, that makes sense. I'd love to know more about it.

Do you have any links or anything?

[womanofthehills]

30. There is a new flu vaccine out there made without chicken eggs

for people with egg allergies. I wonder if that vaccine is any more effective.

[Rollo]

32. Yes, it is more effective, but it can be rather hard to obtain...

...I know from personal experience....

You have to lie and convince the entity that delivers the flu shot that you have a severe allergy to eggs, and then I advise demanding to see the vial they are going to inject you with to confirm it's the egg-free variety. If you want to know which vaccine is egg-free, you can google it, or send me a personal mail.

Effective vaccines against H3N2 influenza can be grown in insect cells, or other non-chicken cell lines. They are more rare and expensive and intended only for those with severe egg allergies.

It SHOULD be a huge scandal for the flu vaccine industry that they didn't address this problem and make ALL the flu vaccines come from non-egg production methods. The excuse being offered is that it would be very expensive to switch all the vaccine production from chick embryos to non-egg methods. Tell that to the parent that has just lost a child to H3N2 influenza.

Please note that I am very pro-vaccination, but I have little patience for an industry that continues to pump out ineffective vaccines.

[Baitball Blogger]

3. Can someone cut and paste the pertinent paragraphs

That explain why the flu season is so pervasive? Not a friendly site for non-subscribers.

[RKP5637]

4. I can do that, just a minute. n/t

[RKP5637]

6. Here is more ...

How bad is this flu season?

It is now as bad as any flu season since the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention adopted stringent surveillance methods in the early 2000s. The infection rate is now 7.7 percent, which equals the peak of the 2009 “swine flu” pandemic. (The rate is a measure of what percentage of all patients visiting doctors in a particular week had flulike symptoms, including a fever of at least 100 degrees.)

Even more worrying, the hospitalization rate is the highest that the C.D.C. has ever recorded at this point in the season. It has now substantially surpassed that of the lethal 2014-2015 season, during which 710,000 Americans were hospitalized and 56,000 died.

It is too early to know how many will ultimately die, but 10.1 percent of all deaths being recorded now are from flu or pneumonia, and a total of 63 children have died thus far.

H3N2 is the most dangerous of the four seasonal flu strains, but it is not new nor uniquely lethal. A typical season mixes two Type A strains — H1N1 and H3N2, and two Type B strains — Victoria and Yamagata. As of Feb. 3, about 74 percent of all samples genetically sequenced have been H3N2, according to the C.D.C. That strain first emerged in Hong Kong in 1968 and killed an estimated 1 million people around the world that year. More B strain flus are now being detected. Scientists have not yet found any genetic changes in the H3N2 virus that would account for its severity this year, Dr. Schuchat said.

How many people are ill?

About 7.7 percent of all Americans seeking medical care now have flu symptoms. That is tracked by the C.D.C.’s Outpatient Influenza-like Illness Surveillance Network, to which about 2,000 doctors’ offices and clinics around the country report weekly how many of their patients have fevers of at least 100 degrees plus a cough or sore throat. The latest percentage equals the mark set in 2009 “swine flu” pandemic, but that was a completely new H1N1 virus containing bird and pig genes for which no one had immunity. (That year’s infection rate peaked in October, not midwinter. Out-of-season peaks are common only for pandemic flus.) The previous high mark for seasonal flu was the 2003--2004 season, which peaked at 7.6 percent; that year’s dominant strain was a mutated variant of H3N2 that proved particularly lethal to children. It prompted the C.D.C. to begin recommending that all children over 6 months old get flu shots.

The C.D.C. does not recommend that oseltamivir be used to prevent infections, except under certain circumstances. These would include, for example, to stop an outbreak in a nursing home, or when a highly vulnerable individual, such as one with a compromised immune system, has been exposed to someone known to have flu.

Where is the flu spreading?

This year’s outbreak began in Louisiana and Mississippi, then spread to California and up the West Coast. It is now widespread across the Midwest and South, and intensity is still increasing in the Northeast, including in New York City.

An experimental new measure, produced by Kinsa from 35,000 daily readings a day uploaded by its internet-connected thermometers, indicates that the highest percentages of people now reporting fevers are in Georgia, South Carolina and the southeast. It indicates the Plains states are leveling off and numbers are still rising in the Mid-Atlantic states and the Northeast.
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Hospitalization rates have risen sharply, and those presage high death rates. As happens every season, some apparently healthy people have died. They include a 21-year-old fitness buff in Latrobe, Pa., a mother of three in San Jose, Calif., and a 10-year-old hockey player in New Canaan, Conn. The latest C.D.C. figures indicate that 63 children and teenagers have died of flu and its consequences, including pneumonia, meningitis and sepsis. In 2014-2015, 148 children died by flu season’s end.

Its H3N2 component is a bad match for the circulating strain. Australia just had a severe flu season with many deaths, and the vaccine there had the same mismatch. Experts estimated that the vaccine prevented infection only 10 percent of the time. The shot’s efficacy here has not yet been calculated because the virus is still spreading, but experts believe it to be about 30 percent. In Australia, vaccination failed partially because it is urged for only the most vulnerable, while in the United States millions of healthy people are vaccinated.

Are antiviral flu medicines working?

Yes, to the extent that they ever do. Of all the samples tested so far by the C.D.C., only 1 percent were resistant to oseltamivir, zanamivir, and peramivir, the ingredients in Tamiflu, Relenza and Rapivab. But to be effective, these medicines should be taken within 48 hours after symptoms appear.

[Rollo]

8. Great, but it still glosses over the root cause: mfg process...

[RKP5637]

9. Yes, they skirt around that, don't they. n/t

[womanofthehills]

26. Here is an similar article - "Blame Eggs"

Sounds like more research is definitely needed.

The way we make vaccines isn’t a good match for the virus type circulating this year.

But lately, researchers have found that there are problems with the egg-based approach that specifically relate to H3N2.

“In the process of adapting virus to grow in eggs, that seems to introduce further changes to the [H3N2] virus, which may impair the effectiveness of the vaccine,” Belongia said. In other words, while growing the flu virus for vaccines, H3N2 mutates to adapt to the eggs, which seems to result in a vaccine mismatch.

Skowronski, whose research helped uncover the egg problem, thinks scientists will discover other reasons the flu vaccine sometimes underperforms. “I don’t think [egg-based production methods] tell the whole story,” she said, noting how complicated flu viruses — and our responses to them — are.

https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/2/1/16960758/flu-vaccine-effectiveness

[RKP5637]

27. Thanks!!! n/t

[Baitball Blogger]

20. Thank you

30 people percent efficacy is better than 10.

[Rollo]

7. See my post above... It's a flu vaccine deficiency...

[tblue37]

5. K&R. Nasty flu season. nt

[BigmanPigman]

10. As a former teacher who got sick year round

regardless of flu shots, getting plenty of sleep, exercise, good food, etc PLEASE keep your kids home for 48 hours after they no longer have a fever. We older folks don't recover as quickly and I have even been hospitalized and lost 1/3 of my blood internally due to the germ filled classroom environment. Kids get somewhat better, return to school, infect the other kids some more (including the poor, overworked teacher), go out sick again, and so on. Each flu season 1/3 of my first graders were absent for weeks. Parents can't afford to take off work or hire a babysitter and always send their kids to school when they should stay home.

Some people in San Diego are spending $150 as a prevention since they can't afford to lose work and pay. They get IV drips for that price and it can help but local ER doctors said to save the money and drink TONS of WATER, even tap water, and Gatorade/anything with electrolytes. I had to have 30 pounds of IV fluids, along with blood transfusions over a three day period. Water is super important. I was so puffed up I could not even fit into sneakers for two weeks.

[RKP5637]

12. Excellent advice. Far too many people spread the flu thinking they are well. Water and and Gatorade

with electrolytes. That is interesting! All excellent advice!!!

[dixiegrrrrl]

18. During widespread illness in the population, people wear face masks, but with a cultural difference:

Here in US, they are worn to protect the wearer from ill people.

In Japan, they are warn with the intent of protecting other people from the wearer.

that difference has always stayed with me.

also, thanks for that important reminder to do LOTS of fluids.

[BigmanPigman]

21. I always wore mine during heavy flu seasons

in class and people always made fun of me. The students all had to have anti bacterial hand gel at their desks but it did no good. Years later doctors backed up my own observations and experiences with its use and effectiveness. If I could have made the kids wear masks I would have. I always had them bring water bottles starting with the first day of school. The school districts should give K-3 teachers 30 extra sick days a year.

[dixiegrrrrl]

31. and double their salary.

[mcar]

23. Good advice, but school districts need to change the rules

Re kids missing school. In our district, kids can be absent with a doctor's note, but then have a very limited time to catch up on missed work. HS students, especially in honors, AP and IB classes are under a great deal of pressure under healthy circumstances.

And let's not even talk about the infernal testing.

Says the wife of a 30 yr public school teacher and mother of two sons, now grown, who occasionally got sick.

[snort]

15. Keep your hands off your face.

When I go out in public I make sure I don't touch my face. When I get home I lathe my hands and face with rubbing alcohol, twirling my dripping pinkies up my schnoz. So far so good. Just don't get it in your eyes. Ouch.

[Flaleftist]

16. Good advice, and also be careful what you touch.

Door handles, elevator buttons, and rails for stairs, escalators, etc.

[retread]

17. Then there is that pesky breathing thing we do.

https://www.webmd.com/cold-and-flu/news/20180119/flu-may-be-spread-by-just-breathing?src=RSS_PUBLIC#1

[KG]

19. sorta cornfused here after reading this - is the part of the problem that vaccines doesn't work?

[RKP5637]

24. Basically, sometimes they are not as effective as other times. For lack of a better way

to say it, sometimes it's sort of guessing game in predicting which strain to have a vaccine against.

[KG]

25. ok, that was what i took from it.

[RKP5637]

29. Also see #11, it goes into a lot more detail about it all. n/t