We've totally crushed the flu virus this year

 As awful as the Covid-19 pandemic is, it’s given us at least one benefit: we’ve utterly crushed the flu virus.

That’s right–the flu has almost completely disappeared this year. A combination of social distancing, closed schools and businesses, dramatically reduced travel, and high flu vaccination rates has achieved something that most flu experts never thought possible.

Flu levels are so low, in fact, that one has to wonder if the flu will even come back next year. The levels now are far lower than we’ve ever seen in modern history. Let’s take a look at the numbers:

nfluenza cases reported to the CDC by US public health laboratories, 2020-2021 season. Data from the CDC, graph created by the author.

As you can see here, the very worst week had just 24 confirmed cases in the entire U.S. That is truly astonishing. And in 2021 so far, we’ve had 5 or fewer cases in the entire country each week. Basically, the flu is gone. To see how dramatic this is, let’s look at data from last year (the winter of 2019-2020), which was a typical flu season:

Influenza cases reported to the CDC by US public health laboratories, 2019-2020, season. Data from the CDC, graph created by the author.

As you can see above, the U.S. had about 3,000 cases per week in January and February of 2020, with a peak at nearly 4,000 cases.

The rate of influenza this year is over 100 times lower than it’s ever been. Why did this happen? It’s obvious: all of the precautions we’re taking to reduce the spread of Covid-19 have worked wonders to prevent the flu as well. In fact, they’ve worked far better for influenza than for the Covid-19 virus.

No one knows what the flu season will look like next year, but for now, at least we’ve won a clear victory against the influenza virus. That’s a bit of good news.