Flu cases decline in Georgia and Atlanta as COVID rises slightly

Caption

Georgia saw a second winter peak in flu hospitalizations earlier this month.

Credit: Courtesy of CDC

Respiratory viruses are beginning to decrease from a second winter peak in Atlanta and across Georgia, data indicate. 

Over the first two weeks of February, wastewater at sites throughout the state show a drop of about 40% in measured levels of the flu virus, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Wastewater data can forecast other markers of the disease like health care visits and hospitalizations, and those points appear to be decreasing as well after alarming local health care workers earlier this month.

In mid-February, metro Atlanta doctors said they were treating more flu cases than they had seen in years. Those observations are now reflected in the CDC’s health care data, which show a second winter peak in Georgia flu hospitalizations earlier this month. Similar trends can be seen at the national level, where high flu transmission has also begun to slow down.

The wastewater data signal a decline in flu sickness, but Dr. Mark Griffiths, an Emory University pediatric medicine associate professor and director of the Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta’s downtown emergency department, said it’s important for residents to stay vigilant against a respiratory illness that has killed at least 55 Georgians this season. 

“Things are so unpredictable,” he said. “Who knows if there might be another flu surge at a non-traditional time period.”

If that happens, Americans could be more vulnerable to the worst effects of the disease, as the federal government has started taking steps to retire some of its flu prevention efforts. 

Other infectious diseases are also continuing to spread throughout the state. While most of this winter’s Georgia respiratory virus hospitalizations have been related to the flu, COVID-19 wastewater levels rose slightly throughout the first two weeks of February. Dozens of Georgians died of causes related to the disease in January, but the count is lower than those over the same time the previous four winters. 

The Georgia Department of Public Health has not reported any additional cases in the state’s measles outbreak, one of three the CDC has reported across the country this year. At three cases so far, Georgia’s outbreak is significantly smaller than one along the Western Texas-Eastern New Mexico border, which public health investigators believe has infected at least 99 people. 

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.