| By Tina Reed |
 Data: CDC; Chart: Erin Davis/Axios VisualsThe worst flu season in 15 years has left hundreds of thousands of Americans hospitalized while straining physicians’ offices and emergency departments.Why it matters: The virus is causing more severe complications and hitting young children especially hard.“The two predominant strains that are circulating right now are known to be more severe and have more severe outcomes, especially in high-risk patients,” said Carol McLay, president of the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology.”It’s really clogging up our ERs and our outpatient facilities. And for the first time, we’ve seen cases of influenza that have surpassed COVID-19 in hospitalizations and deaths, since the COVID pandemic began,” she said.”Of the adults that are being hospitalized, most of them are having pneumonia and requiring intubation and ventilation,” McLay said.By the numbers: This flu season is classified as “high-severity,” with estimates of at least 29 million cases, the most since the 2009-2010 season, according to the latest CDC data.There have been at least 370,000 hospitalizations and 16,000 deaths as of Feb. 8, per the CDC. That’s on a pace to surpass previous record highs for hospitalizations and deathsduring 2017-2018.Nearly every state is reporting high or very high flu activity, with roughly 32% of tests coming back positive and some areas testing nearly 40% positive.Zoom in: Of particular concern is the severity of illness seen in kids this year. There have also been reports of a limited number of pediatric cases with serious neurological complications associated with the flu.Pediatric flu deaths hit a record 200 last year, and this season is shaping up to be worse, said Matthew Cook, president and CEO of Children’s Hospital Association.More here |
from STAT:
| POLITICSFirings will have outsize impact on AI oversight at FDAThe Trump administration’s firings at the FDA have hit the artificial and digital health divisions particularly hard, raising concerns over the agency’s ability to regulate the rapidly growing use of AI in medical devices, STAT’s Lizzy Lawrence reports. There’s concern that the cuts could slow the approval process, reduce oversight, and shift the burden of ensuring patient safety to hospitals.“I fear if there’s going to be even less rigor because we can’t keep up with the bandwidth and we can’t do important research, that burden is going to go to the hospitals,” one FDA employee, who requested anonymity to protect against retaliation, told STAT. “It’s going to go to the patients.”The FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health has had a strained relationship with one of Elon Musk’s companies, Neuralink, which is testing a brain implant. Among the employees fired over the weekend were several reviewing Neuralink’s technology, Reuters reports. |
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