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Influenza viruses have continued to steadily circulate within Atlanta and Georgia communities as the state contends with other concerning infectious diseases.
Health care visits for flu-like symptoms and community virus levels detected in wastewater sites remain near their highest marks of the winter, according to data released Friday from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Close to 3,000 residents had overnight stays for the flu at metro Atlanta hospitals in January, according to the Georgia Department of Public Health.
None of these indicators have reached last year’s peak. But Dr. Mark Griffiths, an Emory University pediatric medicine associate professor and director of the Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta’s downtown emergency department, said his hospital is experiencing one of the largest flu surges he’s witnessed.
“We’re seeing higher levels of kids testing positive than probably seen the last decade or so,” he said. “And they are coming in of all ages.”
He attributes the spike in flu hospital visits to multiple factors. During the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, cases of other viruses fell to lower-than-normal rates. But now that some pandemic prevention steps have been relaxed, many airborne diseases have exceeded their baseline numbers.
Additionally, Griffiths said he’s seen fewer kids vaccinated against the flu compared to previous winters. The CDC estimates that as of early February, between 33% and 56% of children over 6 months old received this year’s shot.
He said the low vaccine uptake is concerning for the health of Georgia kids, as the shots add an extra layer of disease protection.
“Since Covid, we’ve seen the persistence of this vaccine hesitancy,” he said. “Now, we’re seeing it as these really high flu surges.”
Griffiths said it’s not too late for parents to have their children immunized this year, as traditional flu seasons last until March. Additionally, he highlighted new tools, like over-the-counter flu and Covid combination tests, and familiar protections, like wearing a mask when sick, as useful ways for people to prevent respiratory virus spread.
The state is also contending with a variety of other infectious diseases. Over the past few weeks, state and local public health officials have been responding to a small measles outbreak that has infected three members of the same family. None of the family members were vaccinated against measles. No other Georgia residents have tested positive, according to the state DPH.
A study published by the CDC on Thursday also found that public health officials detected a travel-associated Georgia case of Clade I mpox in January, the second case ever detected in the United States. The report says that Clade I cases lead to death more often than Clade II infections, which are still rare but more common domestically.
The Georgia patient’s case was not severe, according to the CDC study. Nancy Nydam, a DPH spokesperson, said the department monitored people who had been in contact with the patient for 21 days — the time in which symptoms usually appear — and none of them contracted the disease.
Allen Siegler is a reporter covering public health in Atlanta for Healthbeat. Contact Allen at asiegler@healthbeat.org.
