University of Tennessee Medical Center reported four adult flu deaths for the 2018-2019 season.
Flu season is officially over at the University of Tennessee Medical Center.
That doesn't mean you can't still get sick with influenza. But the number and pattern of positive flu cases has declined enough that infectious disease physician Dr. Mark Rasnake, after reviewing the data, feels comfortable saying the 2018-2019 season is at an end.
Hospitals aren't required to report adult flu deaths, but Rasnake said UT Medical Center had four this season. Flu-related child deaths are reportable to the national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which said 86 have occurred so far this year. One of those was in Tennessee.
Flu season in East Tennessee typically ends in March, Rasnake said, and it did so for most of the rest of the state.
"We started late and ended later than usual," he said.
But the season was much less severe than last year's, in East Tennessee as well as in other parts of the country. Though it will be months before the CDC releases its analysis of how effective the 2018-2019 vaccine was, Rasnake said anecdotally, it seemed to be a much better match.
"We had very few cases of illness in our vaccinated staff this year," he said.
He also credited Knox County Health Department's in-school vaccination program with making an impact not only by keeping children from getting serious flu cases, but slowing flu's spread through the community.
When was peak for flu?
Last season, UT Medical Center's flu patients peaked in January, and by the end of March 371 patients had been hospitalized with Flu A, another 59 with less-common Flu B.
This year's peak came in February and March, and by the end of March 236 patients had been hospitalized with Flu A and 11 with Flu B.
Rasnake said most of the patients were in the population who are hospitalized with flu every year: the very old and very young, and those with other health problems.
The CDC characterizes Tennessee's current flu activity as "regional," but some nearby states — Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and George — still have "widespread" flu activity, the CDC said.
"Every year, the flu behaves differently," Rasnake said. "You never really know until it's over what each flu season is going to be like."