11th Consecutive Influenza-Like and COVID-19-Like Illnesses Decrease Reported

Across the USA, levels of influenza-like illness (ILI) and COVID-19-like illness (CLI) activity continue to increase overall last week, reported the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

But most importantly, the CDC confirmed on July 10, 2020, based on death certificate data, the percentage of fatalities attributed to pneumonia, influenza or COVID-19 (PIC) decreased from 6.9 percent during week #26, to just 5.5 percent during week #27.

This new data represents the 11th consecutive week during which a declining percentage of deaths due to PIC has been recorded, stated the CDC.

In a recent interview on 60 Minutes, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell stated that “at the moment, the thing that matters more than anything else is the medical metrics.”

“But in a sense, those are a byproduct.”

One key question policymakers have had to answer is which medical metrics are the most informative. 

Hospitalization rates, the number of patients in intensive care units, and COVID-19 positive cases are helpful indications of the ongoing pandemic.

“So what we’re really looking at is getting the medical data, which is not what we usually look at, taken care of so that the economic data can start to recover,” concluded Chairman Powell.

From an age segmentation perspective, the overall cumulative COVID-19 disease-associated hospitalization rate is 107.2 per 100,000, with the highest rates in people 65 years of age and older.

Furthermore, for those between the ages of 0-17 years, the cumulative COVID-19 hospitalization rates are much lower than cumulative influenza hospitalization rates at comparable time points during recent influenza seasons.

When segmenting just influenza, the CDC reported people 65 years and older, current cumulative COVID-19 hospitalization rates at this time are higher than cumulative end-of-season hospitalization rates for influenza for 4 of the 5 past flu seasons.

CDC Note: Weekly mortality surveillance data include a combination of machine coded and manually coded causes of death collected from death certificates. Percentages of deaths due to PIC are higher among manually coded records than more rapidly available machine coded records. Due to the additional time needed for manual coding, the initially reported PIC percentages may be lower than the percentages calculated from the final data.

Influenza-like illness and COVID-19-like illness news reported by Precision Vaccinations.