Flu hospitalizations decline in Minnesota, but COVID-19 persists

Flu-related hospitalizations declined for the second straight week in Minnesota, offering hope that an influenza season that started early will also end early.

While 2,601 patients have been hospitalized for flu already this season — nearly tripling the total in the last two seasons combined — there were only 264 such cases in Minnesota in the week ending Dec. 17. That preliminary total is down from 400 the prior week and nearly 600 in the week before that, according to Thursday’s state influenza update.

Its possible that the state is just in for an early flu season, rather than a severe one, said Michael Osterholm, director for the University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy.

An early influenza surge in Australia hit children particularly hard and raised global fears of a bad flu season. However, that wave ended early, along with others in the Southern Hemisphere, Osterholm said.

“They were normal flu seasons” in those regions, he said. “just out-of-whack timewise.”

State health leaders said they aren’t taking chances, urging vaccinations and vigilance as Minnesota reaches the germ-mixing holiday season. Even in a typical influenza season, an initial wave of infections caused by A strains of the virus in January and February is followed by a second but smaller B strain wave.

A brief issued this week by the Minnesota EMR Consortium, a data analysis partnership of the state’s largest hospital systems, found that the state is on track for its worst flu season in seven years, and possibly the last 50 years.

“It’s not unprecedented to have two separate increases,” said Peter Bodurtha, a data scientist at Hennepin Healthcare Research Institute, a partner in the consortium. “It really depends on what happens the rest of the year. But being this far head of the curve this early, with this much of the season left, that’s not a good position to be in.”

Flu levels were suppressed the past two years by COVID-19 and the public health response to the pandemic, including social-distancing and mask-wearing practices. Flu has re-emerged this year in the absence of those practices — and with only steady levels of COVID-19 rather than a wintertime surge.

Thursday’s state pandemic situation update showed a slight…