March 22--The groundhog has spoken, and the vernal equinox has passed, but if you need another sign of spring, here's one: For the first time in 13 weeks, the flu has fallen from widespread levels in Virginia.
The commonwealth was one of the last holdout states in a country where most flu levels dropped in late February, according to statistics posted Thursday by the Virginia Department of Health.
If it feels like the longest and worst flu season in the history of mankind, that's probably tied more to your personal experience than to actual numbers.
This year's season falls short, for instance, of 2009, the pandemic year of the H1N1 strain, when widespread levels popped up in May and were scattered throughout the rest of the year. It also fell short of the 2010-11 flu season by a week.
The real outlier was last year's particularly mild season, according to deputy state epidemiologist Laurie Forlano. Widespread levels lasted only three weeks, and no children died of flu-related illness.
This year, one teen, in Northern Virginia, died of the flu, one of 99 pediatric flu-related deaths across the country so far.
Flu-related emergency room and urgent care visits peaked in Virginia around the second week of January, when 8 percent of all visits fell into that category.
Dr. Stephen Buescher, who directs the microbiology lab at Children's Hospital of The King's Daughters in Norfolk, said flu cases there peaked in early January. Most were an A strain, but during the past several weeks there's been another bump of a B strain, which he said is typical late in the season.
He characterized the overall season as moderate.
Dr. Scott Miller, vice president of medical affairs for Sentara Leigh Hospital in Norfolk, said this was the first year the hospital system required employees to either get the flu vaccine or wear infection-control masks when flu is widespread. Ninety-one percent of their clinical staff employees opted to receive the vaccine, compared with 71 percent the previous year.
The vaccine this year was 56 percent effective, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The range typically is 50 percent to 70 percent.
At Leigh, the largest volume of patients with flu-related illness arrived in early January. The hospital went into a two-week "surge capacity" when beds were full and some patients had to be kept longer in emergency rooms or postoperative areas.
"You never like to say it was a successful flu season -- that sounds terrible, doesn't it? -- but in terms of management, the community did very well," Miller said.
A drop from widespread levels doesn't mean the flu has entirely disappeared; the season usually runs through early spring. Local hospitals, though, have lifted an earlier recommendation that visitors wear infection-control masks now that the levels have dropped.
Health care providers are continuing to see cases of norovirus. The illness, which causes vomiting and diarrhea, is sometimes referred to as "winter vomiting disease" or "the stomach flu," even though it's not the flu.
A new Sydney strain, first identified in Australia in March 2012, is circulating in Virginia and across the country. Sometimes a new strain will seem to hit hard because people have no immunity to it, but norovirus is particularly virulent anyway, and the strains change frequently.
Forlano said the number of norovirus outbreaks has not been greater this season than in previous years. Since Oct. 1, 146 norovirus outbreaks have been reported, most of them in long-term-care and other health facilities, compared with 178 at this time last year.
The norovirus season generally runs through April.
Elizabeth Simpson, 757-446-2635, elizabeth.simpson@pilotonline.com
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