Flu Season Results are Coming in.... It's H1N1!

     The 2018-2019 influenza season is well underway, and based on the latest CDC weekly update, it looks to have peaked during the last week of December, when 7,000 positive samples of the disease were confirmed by the CDC. In 9 out of 10 CDC sentinel regions, the main culprit this year turned out to be a familiar one: H1N1, a strain of influenza A.
      H1N1 is most famous as the pathogen responsible for the devestating Spanish Influenza Pandemic of 1918, however 100 years later H1N1 is better known for causing widespread histeria than widespread death (an epidemic in 2009 comes to mind as a particular example of how the modern virus pales in comparison to its historic forebear). Despite not living up to the devestating destruction its legacy would suggest, H1N1 is still dangerous, causing tens of thousands of deaths every season it is active.
      This season does not seem to deviate from that pattern, and the specific type spreading, H1N1pdm09, is already a known killer, responsible for a handful of outbreaks during the 2016-2017 flu season that took the lives of hundreds. Additionally this specific virus seems especially nasty, having shown resistant to most antivirals in the past.
       The complete statistics from this flu season are not reported by the CDC until the late-spring at the earliest, however, with the large increases in flu vaccination this year (up about 8% on average), and pdm09 specifically included in this year's vaccines, it seems that this year's flu season could end up being a mild one, even given the spread of such a formidable virus. Only time will tell for sure if this optimism is warranted.

-J. Cole Holderman: TA Extraordinaire
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/fluvaxview/nifs-estimates-nov2018.htm
https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/773528
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/index.htm
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/index.htm