For the week ending Oct. 15, 1,674 patients with laboratory-confirmed influenza were admitted to a hospital, according to the CDC's latest FluView report.
That is up from 1,322 flu patients admitted the previous week, though the CDC emphasizes that data in the reports are preliminary and may change as more reports are received.
Overall, flu activity is rising in most of the U.S., with Southern states reporting the highest levels.
Six more notes:
1. Washington, D.C., reported very high flu activity for the week ending Oct. 15. Seven states — Texas, Tennessee, Georgia, South Carolina, New York, Louisiana and Alabama — New York City and Puerto Rico reported high levels of activity. Seven states — Virginia, New Mexico, Hawaii, North Carolina, Mississippi, Maryland and New Jersey — reported moderate activity. Nine states — Nebraska, Kansas, Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, California, Colorado, Kentucky and Connecticut — reported low activity. The remaining states reported minimal activity.
2. No flu-associated pediatric deaths were reported for the week ending Oct. 15. A total of 43 flu-related pediatric deaths have been reported during the 2021-22 flu season
3. Clinical laboratories tested 61,813 specimens for influenza for the week ending Oct. 15. Of those, 4.4 percent were positive, most of which for influenza A. The positivity rate was 3.3 percent the previous week.
4. The percentage of visits to an outpatient provider for influenza-like illness — meaning fever plus cough or sore throat, not lab-confirmed flu — was 3 percent for the week ending Oct. 15. This is above the national baseline of 2.5 percent.
5. Nationwide, 0.4 percent of 14,239 long-term care facilities reported at least one flu-positive test among residents for the week ending Oct. 15.
6. The national flu, pneumonia and/or COVID-19 mortality rate is 8.8 percent, which sits above the epidemic threshold of 5.8 percent for the week. Among the 2,060 deaths reported for the week, 931 had COVID-19 and 18 had the flu listed as an underlying or contributing cause of death. This indicates the current death rate for pneumonia, influenza and COVID-19 is primarily due to COVID-19, the CDC said.