Query Response

Responder: Anonymous

The 2019-2020 influenza season saw a steady decline in numbers throughout the month of March. According to the CDC, the number of clinical cases testing positive for flu decreased from 24.3 percent at the end of February, to 2.1 percent for the week ending in March 28. That’s not exactly surprising, as numbers always tend to decline as we near April. But the drop has been pretty sharp. It’s too early to say whether social distancing measures are responsible and how great of a role they played. Other factors involved include the effectiveness of the vaccine and how many people got it, how infectious the flu was this year, and how rigorously people were tested (and whether the covid-19 pandemic played a role in incentivizing testing). We won’t know for sure until epidemiologists get a chance to look over the data.