Georgia respiratory disease hospitalizations decline, but flu and COVID could be rising

Caption

Last month, Georgia’s Department of Public Health warned residents and state physicians to be on the lookout for pertussis, also known as whooping cough.

Credit: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Georgia hospitalizations for the three most common U.S. respiratory diseases have continued to decline, but updates from COVID-19 and influenza data sources suggest that might change in the coming weeks. 

In a Friday update, data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention continued to show the number of Georgia overnight hospital stays for flu, Covid-19, and respiratory syncytial virus has decreased from the first week of January through last Saturday. Flu hospitalizations continue to outnumber stays for either of the other two viruses, as they have since mid-December.

But other sources of data, ones that can be quicker to reveal disease trends in communities, indicate that flu and Covid infections are on the rise. State wastewater sites in the metro Atlanta area and eastern Georgia show rising virus levels for both diseases over the latter half of January, as does the percentage of emergency department visits for the illnesses.

Still, most Georgia data indicate that this year’s respiratory disease season remains less severe than some recent winters. Covid and flu wastewater levels and hospitalization rates have yet to reach last year’s peaks. These data are in line with a December outlook from the CDC, which predicted national severe infection rates to be lower than last year but higher than before Covid’s emergence. 

The state’s Department of Public Health has continued to update its seasonal flu death count, adding nine more to last week’s total. At the Board of Public Health’s January meeting, state epidemiologist Dr. Cherie Drenzek said these types of updates can reflect completed morbidity investigations from weeks earlier. 

The state health department also announced this week that it had detected the first measles case of the year and emphasized the effectiveness of the disease’s vaccine.

The status of another concerning respiratory disease is less clear. Last month, Georgia’s DPH warned residents and state physicians to be on the lookout for pertussis, also known as whooping cough. As of the last week in December, the CDC had reported nearly three times as many cases as it did for 2023.

But the CDC hasn’t updated its counts of this or other nationally notifiable infectious diseases since then, making it unclear whether this trend has continued into 2025. The federal agency has stopped most external communications since President Donald Trump took office last week, and a CDC spokesperson said he couldn’t answer when the pertussis numbers would be updated. 

Allen Siegler is a reporter covering public health in Atlanta for Healthbeat. Contact Allen at asiegler@healthbeat.org. This story comes to GPB through a reporting partnership with Healthbeat.