2024-11-22 BC

Influenza levels are still low, both in BC and in the US northwest. I still don’t think it’s the optimum time yet to get a flu shot.

H5N1

Transmission

For info on the BC human H5N1 case, see the General post.

This article (2024-11-17) says that there are now 37 infected poultry flocks in BC.

COVID-19

Charts

From the BC CDC Situation Report:

Comparison vs. Other Influenza-Like-Illnesses, from the Viral Pathogen Characterization page:

Percent positivity

RSV moving up, but flu is actually down from last week. COVID-19 is also down slightly.

In the week ending Nov 16, among confirmed cases, there were:

  • ~4.2 times as many COVID-19 cases as flu cases,
  • ~2.1 times as many COVID-19 cases as RSV cases,
  • ~1.3 times as many COVID-19 cases as enterovirus or rhinovirus cases.
  • only ~0.6 times as many COVID-19 cases as all the other influenza-like illnesses (influenza, RSV, enterovirus, rhinovirus, adenovirus, human metapneumovirus, parainfluenza, and common-cold coronaviruses).

Fun fact: as recently as Nov 2, if you had “a cold”, it was more likely to be COVID-19 than anything else. After Nov 2, if you had “a cold”, it was more likely to not be COVID-19. By contrast, in the week ending 23 August, there were ~4.2 times as many cases of COVID-19 as anything else.

Reminder: the graphs below don’t tell how many cases there were, but how many cases they found when testing. Almost nobody gets tested.

Wastewater

From Jeff’s wastewater spreadsheet: