I now have a recommendation on when to get a flu shot: somewhere around Dec. 10. It takes about two weeks to get max protection, and getting a shot around Dec. 10 puts you at max protection around Christmas Eve. I think the peak will be in late January, so you will also have good protection in the month while it ramps up (and still pretty good in the month when it ramps down).
The number of COVID cases is down quite a bit; flu and especially RSV are rising. There are still about twice as many COVID-19 cases as flu cases, but there are about as many RSV cases as COVID-19, and about as many entero/rhinovirus cases.
Yes, this is only the people who get tested, but testing criteria haven’t changed much and you could imagine a lot more testing as respiratory season starts. (Or maybe not, there are a lot less upper respiratory diseases circulating right now than there were last January.)
I had been holding off on recommending when to get a flu shot because I was a little worried that flu was going to peak way late this year; I didn’t want to give advice that would be too early. However, now flu seems to have finally made its move, and I am less nervous about a late peak.
Charts
From the BC CDC Situation Report:
Comparison vs. Other Influenza-Like-Illnesses, from the Viral Pathogen Characterization page:
RSV moving up and flu is (finally) moving up. COVID-19 is down.
In the week ending Nov 23, among confirmed cases, there were:
- ~2.4 times as many COVID-19 cases as flu cases,
- about as many COVID-19 cases as RSV cases,
- about as many COVID-19 cases as enterovirus or rhinovirus cases.
- only ~0.4 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).
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:
