The 2022 holiday season didn’t result in surges in respiratory disease transmissions, contrary to what experts anticipated. 

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) confirmed Friday that based on latest U.S. government data, reported doctor visits and transmissions of flu-like illnesses didn’t witness a major rise, the Associated Press reported. 

As a substitute, the reported cases fell for the sixth straight week after the flu and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) infections surged in the autumn. 

“At once, all the things continues to say no,” the CDC’s Lynnette Brammer, who leads the agency’s effort to trace flu cases within the U.S., said. 

Last November, public health and medical examiners feared the worst for the vacation season as they anticipated a “tripledemic” of the flu, RSV and COVID-19. 

On the time, data from the Health and Human Services Department showed that flu hospitalizations increased nearly 30% in every week, with greater than 11,200 people getting hospitalized resulting from the flu virus within the week ending Nov. 19. 

Nonetheless, health authorities said this week that flu and RSV hospitalizations have been happening since November in most places. Elsewhere, more illnesses were reported. But doctors noted that patient traffic is already easing. 

The news didn’t come as a surprise for the reason that CDC announced mid-December that experts were seeing the primary signs of flu activity slowing down in the course of the holidays.

The week after Thanksgiving, hospitalizations dropped 10% after the country recorded the season’s worst figures the week prior. 

Dr. Ethan Weiner, a pediatric ER doctor on the Hassenfeld Children’s Hospital at NYU Langone in Recent York City, told the Associated Press this week that the flu and RSV cases “eased up, considerably.”

He surmised that the surges likely dwindled because many members of the vulnerable population got infected, “and it just form of burned itself out.”

It’s also price noting that throughout the ordeal, public health authorities have been very lively in encouraging the general public to get vaccinated against the viruses, especially SARS-CoV-2. 

Nevertheless, experts warned that the flu season is removed from over. What they expected to occur over the vacations could still unfold within the weeks ahead.