@helenbranswell
I cover infectious diseases for STAT (www.statnews.com). 2020 Polk winner. Nieman '11. She/her. I write about H5N1 (in all species), Covid, polio, flu, Ebola, RSV, mpox, STIs. Find me on Signal: HBranswell.01
4. This #flu season has seemed interminable but it's not atypical. The red line in the graphs is this season. When it gets below the dotted line, flu season will be considered over. I've compared 2025-26 to 2 recent years, last year & 2019-20. Both started at similar times & lasted well into March.
3. #CDC estimates this has been a moderately severe #flu season, with ~26M illnesses, 340K hospitalizations & 21K deaths.
Still plenty of flu around, but it is starting to ease as you can see in the maps. On the left is the end of Jan.; right is the end of Feb. The less red the better.
2. While #H3N2 remains the dominant #flu virus this year, #fluB activity has taken off of late; it made up 30% of the lab confirmed cases last week. Flu B is tough on kids.
#CDC 's FluView is here: www.cdc.gov/fluview/surv...
1. A #flu update:
Another 11 children have died this flu season, bringing the total to date to 90. #CDC says of those with known vaccination status, 85% weren't fully vaccinated.
That number will continue to rise in coming weeks. But 2026 may not be as bad as 2025 for peds flu deaths.🤞🤞
2. The confirmed #measles case count has hit 1281, up 145 from last week. The number of jurisdictions reporting outbreaks has risen to 31 from 28 last week. The number of new outbreaks in 2026 has gone from 10 to 12 since last week. Only 4 of the cases were imported. www.cdc.gov/measles/data...
1. A #measles & #flu update.
We're only 9 weeks into the year & the total confirmed measles cases so far puts makes 2026 the second worst year for measles in the past 34 years.
The worst year was last year. But in merely 9 weeks, 2026 has recorded 56% of the entire 2025 total.
Gonna be a bad year.
Happy to see the peer-reviewed version of this manuscript published yesterday in NEJM-Evidence.
@nejm.org
evidence.nejm.org/doi/full/10....
Holy cow! Our new study showing that H5 mRNA-LNP vaccines are safe and effective in lactating dairy cows is now posted on @biorxivpreprint.bsky.social!
We found that our vaccine elicits protective responses in 2,000 pound dairy cows! 1/
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Read this: When #HHS rewrote the childhood vaccination schedule, it pushed several "recommended for all vaccines" to the "shared clinical decision making" category. SCDM has been conflated with informed consent by proponents of the change but it isn't that.
jakescottmd.substack.com/p/when-the-d...
There haven't been new reports of #H5N1 infected dairy herds in the US for several months, but I keep an eye on the #USDA page where they're posted. Sometime in the past few weeks 4 more herds were added to Idaho's total. Infections were last April-May. publicdashboards.dl.usda.gov/t/MRP_PUB/vi...
Stanley Plotkin had a major hand in the development of a number of vaccines in use today; he designed the rubella vaccine. He remembers the world before widespread use of vaccines & knows what's coming as vaccine policy is rewritten & vaccine confidence is eroded. www.statnews.com/2026/03/02/s...
Correcting myself: Means is a licensed physician, but her license is inactive. Apologies for my error.
6. The upshot: No reason to be alarmed yet. But all such cases need to be investigated. www.reuters.com/business/hea...
5. People who watch #flu (✋) pay attention to such cases because there's always a chance they won't be one-offs. In 2009, the first sign that a flu pandemic had started came when Calif. reported 2 cases of #swineflu in kids who had no contact with pigs or each other. www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview...
4. But sometimes there is no known source of the infection, like the case in Spain, or this case the CDC reported on in 2022. This can, and does happen. www.cdc.gov/swine-flu/co...
3. Some context: In the past 6 months, #WHO was alerted to 25 cases of #flu where the virus was one that doesn't circulate in people; 4 were #swineflu cases.
The US regularly spots swine flu infections, mostly in people who work with or have contact with pigs at fairs. (Often called state fair flu.)
2. This week #flu experts from around the world were meeting in Turkey to make recommendations on what next winter's flu shot should target. They discussed this case.
From @WHO: "WHO is gathering further information from Spanish authorities and will provide further information as needed."
1. More #flu news today: Spain has reported a case of #swineflu, (H1N1v), in an 83 yo person who had no contact with pigs. No clear connection between the person & pigs suggests this might be person-to-person spread. Spain is investigating but says it believes the risk to be "very low."
6. To give you a sense of what #flu is like where you are, the map on the left is for the week ending 2/21. On the right shows what things were like at the peak of the season, between Xmas and NY. Not out of the woods yet, but the end of flu season is coming. www.cdc.gov/fluview/surv...
5. #Flu season is hanging on. (this year=red line, last year=orange). You always hope when there's a high peak like this year that flu season might end early but it often lingers. #H3N2 is still the dominant virus, but a sharply growing percentage of cases are now #fluB, which is tough on kids.
4. #CDC reports that 90% of the kids who died from #flu who were old enough to be vaccinated (<6 months is too young) & for whom vax status is know had not been vaccinated. Last year's death toll was record-breaking but this year Sec. Kennedy's #HHS dropped the flu vax recommendation for kids.
3. Now #flu:
More kids have died from flu, both this season & last. (Reporting of pediatric deaths to #CDC can be slow.)
8 more kids died in 2025-26, bringing the total to date to 79.
In the past 2 weeks, CDC has been alerted to 4 more peds flu deaths in 2024-25, bringing that year's total to 293!
2. CDC reports 92% of the confirmed cases this year were unvaccinated or had unknown vax status.
Most of these cases are from ongoing transmission chains. Only 6 this year were infected abroad.
At least 5% of the cases this year were so sick they needed hospital care. www.cdc.gov/measles/data...
1. A #measles & #flu update, starting with measles.
The confirmed case count for this year has topped 1,000 already. It now stands at 1,136.
For some context: In the first 2 months of 2026 the US has recorded half as many measles cases as were confirmed in all of 2025, which was a very bad year.
"The surgeon general is not a wellness influencer": Former surgeon general Jerome Adams on why the Senate should not confirm surgeon general-nominee Casey Means, who is not a licensed physician. www.statnews.com/2026/02/27/c...
The Federal Register notice for the (now) March #ACIP meeting is now up & it's ... puzzling.
Possible vote on Covid vaccine injury? ACIP can recommend changes to the way a vaccine is used, for safety reasons. But vaccine injuries aren't its turf.
public-inspection.federalregister.gov/2026-03877.pdf
The publisher Elsevier confirms it has turned down a request from the leaders of the Bandim Health Project to retract a commentary in Vaccine that analyzed their work on non-specific effects of vaccines & concluded there were significant problems with it. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
In today's episode of "As the #CDC Turns", the agency's #2 official — the one who actually goes to work in Atlanta — steps down from a job he started in early January. "Unforeseen family obligations cited as the reason for Ralph Abraham's departure. www.statnews.com/2026/02/23/r...
With #measles outbreaks raging in the the US, I've been puzzled by the drop in hospitalizations reported in 2026 by #CDC. Here's why: @propublica.org reports that SC, which has racked up 100s of cases in 2026, doesn't require hospitals to report measles admissions. www.propublica.org/article/sout...
Doesn't look like it. (This from PHAC.)