United States: The cases related to flu and COVID-19 are still witnessing an upward trend in the United States, especially in some of the regions of the nation. Recently, concerns regarding the increasing number of cases linked to the disease have been raised by the Health Department of North Carolina.
Recently, the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services (NCDHHS) has mentioned that there is a chance that the worst of the flu season could be behind us. However, the Health Department has mentioned that it has reported a downward trend in deaths and hospital admissions linked to flu cases.
High Rise in COVID-19 cases
In terms of COVID-19, the number of people being admitted to hospitals decreased after the beginning of the year. However, the admissions have stabilized and started to rise again, indicating slight increases over the past two weeks in a row, according to the reports by CBS17.
According to the stats shared by the health authorities, the increase in COVID-19 hospitalizations aligned with the state’s observations regarding the detection of COVID-19 particles in wastewater. Over the last four (4) weeks, the average number of virus particles per person was 67.4 million, and in the latest week, the NCDHHS discovered 80.7 million particles, according to reports by CBS17.
Improvement in flu cases in North Carolina
However, the number of hospital admissions linked to flu has witnessed a downward trend following the peak during the last week of 2023. At that time, the number of hospital admissions was around 1,055.

However, according to the recent data shared by the NCDHHS, the total number of hospitalizations was 117. Reportedly, the data covered the admissions from the week commencing on February 11 to February 17.
The authorities have mentioned that the stats have shown a significant improvement as compared to the first weeks of 2024, which reported more than 500 flu hospitalizations.
In addition to this, the health authority has mentioned that the deaths related to flu have also witnessed a decrease, since an increase till November 2023.
According to the latest stats, during the present week, four (4) flu-related deaths have been reported in the states. Following this, the state-wide deaths have reached up to 256. It is to be noted that the highest number of deaths, i.e. 159, were reported among the older population of the United States, aged 65 and above.
On the contrary, the lowest number of deaths, i.e., 2, were reported among the younger population, aged 18-24 years. In addition to this, the deaths reported between the age group of 0-4 were four (4), between 5-17 were six (6), between 25-49 were 21, and between 50-64 were 64, as per the stats shared by the local health agency.