The US has seen a 98% drop in ordinary flu hospitalizations, likely due to COVID-19 measures, Southern Hempisphere alsop saw drops.s

Fears of a 'twindemic' are over: The US has seen a 98% drop in flu hospitalizations, likely due to COVID-19 measures The US's flu season peaks in February. But flu cases are unusually low due to coronavirus-relate safety measures and decreased travel. YahooNews

Public-health experts prepared for a "twindemic" as fall approached last year: a double threat of the coronavirus and the seasonal flu.

But even as cold, dry weather descended on the Northern Hemisphere and COVID-19 cases surged, the US and UK have experienced historically mild flu seasons.

Between October 1 and January 30, just 155 Americans were hospitalized with the flu, compared to 8,633 during roughly the same time frame a year ago. That's a 98% decrease. Labs in the US have collected and tested more than half a million samples for the flu since late September, but just 0.2% of those samples tested positive (1,300 in total), according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Every US state is experiencing "minimal" flu activity, the agency reported. That's in contrast from last season, when 22,000 Americans died of the flu.

A likely driver of the unusually low infection and hospitalization rates is COVID-19. Measures meant to slow or prevent the coronavirus' spread have also stopped other pathogens like influenza, according to Sonja Olsen, a CDC epidemiologist at the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases.

"Measures including extensive reductions in global travel, teleworking, school closures, social distancing, and face mask use may have played a role," she told Insider. Olsen noted, however, that it's challenging to tease out precisely which of those measures mattered most for flu prevention.

Across the globe, influenza activity is at lower levels than expected for this time of the year, according to the World Health Organization. Since the start of the pandemic, the Southern Hemisphere has had "virtually no influenza circulation," the CDC reported.

That's despite increased testing for flu in some countries, according to Olsen.

"There is some influenza circulating in tropical countries, but in these countries it appears that the season is blunted compared to other years," she said. ...