{"id":3831,"date":"2023-06-13T21:30:10","date_gmt":"2023-06-14T02:30:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/?p=3831"},"modified":"2023-06-13T21:32:08","modified_gmt":"2023-06-14T02:32:08","slug":"australias-having-an-intense-flu-season-and-it-could-be-a-signal-of-whats-to-come-in-the-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/2023\/06\/13\/australias-having-an-intense-flu-season-and-it-could-be-a-signal-of-whats-to-come-in-the-us\/","title":{"rendered":"Australia\u2019s having an intense flu season, and it could be a signal of what\u2019s to come in the US"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"panel body-content\"><div class=\"panel__container\">\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2023\/06\/12\/health\/australia-intense-flu-season-whats-coming\/index.html\">CNN<\/a>  It\u2019s only June, but scientists in the US are already thinking about flu season. As always at this time of year, they\u2019re keeping a close\u00a0<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.health.gov.au\/our-work\/influenza-surveillance-program\" target=\"_blank\">eye on Australia<\/a>, which saw an early start to its flu season. Some parts of the country are seeing a spike in illness, and the highest number of cases are among children. Those flu patterns could be an indicator of what\u2019s to come in the US.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the US, flu activity is\u00a0<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cdc.gov\/flu\/weekly\/index.htm\" target=\"_blank\">currently low<\/a>, as it usually is this time of year. The Covid-19 pandemic made flu season\u00a0<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/pmc\/articles\/PMC7498167\/\" target=\"_blank\">a little less predictable<\/a>, but people generally don\u2019t start getting sick until around October, and doctors\u2019 offices don\u2019t get really busy until somewhere between December and February. In the Southern Hemisphere, where it\u2019s now winter, cases began increasing \u201csharply\u201d in early May, the Australian Department of Health and Aged Care said Friday. It\u2019s an earlier start of the season\u00a0<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.health.gov.au\/resources\/collections\/aisr?language=en\" target=\"_blank\">than some years<\/a>; case numbers are higher than the five-year average, the agency said, but lower than around this time in 2019 and 2022. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Scientists are also watching the number of cases in kids. More children in Australia appear to be getting sick than other age groups this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>American scientists typically look to Australia and some other countries to try to anticipate exactly how bad the flu will get in the US during its fall and winter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cWe closely monitor what happens in countries throughout the Southern Hemisphere this time of year, just to see what\u2019s happening during their flu season. It\u2019s not always a predictor of what\u2019s going to happen here the next season, but yes, we do. We do closely monitor that all summer long,\u201d said Carrie Reed, chief of the Influenza Division of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention\u2019s Epidemiology and Prevention Branch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2023\/06\/12\/health\/australia-intense-flu-season-whats-coming\/index.html\">Continue reading<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2023\/05\/16\/health\/exercise-flu-pneumonia-death-wellness\"><\/a><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>CNN It\u2019s only June, but scientists in the US are already thinking about flu season. As always at this time of year, they\u2019re keeping a close\u00a0eye on Australia, which saw an early start to its flu season. Some parts of the country are seeing a spike in illness, and the highest number of cases are [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[21,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3831","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured","category-influenza"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3831","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3831"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3831\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3832,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3831\/revisions\/3832"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}