After one of the worst influenza seasons the state has seen in some time, cases are now declining.
Minnesota Department of Health data show nearly 6,900 hospitalizations this flu season, which is well above recent years. They also report 79 deaths so far.
Epidemiologist Supervisor Melissa McMahon says it was a severe season by pretty much any measure, including school outbreaks.
"Second week of January, things really, really spiked," she says. "So, kind of the week after kids came back from, winter break, things were definitely happening among schools. There's a lot of respiratory illness."
McMahon says we're not out of the woods yet and it's not too late to get a flu shot. She also reminds people to be good about hand-washing and stay home if they're sick.
"We saw a lot of hospitalizations, a lot of associated deaths, a lot of outpatient," says McMahon. "I mean, pretty much any measure that we look at, we, we had a pretty severe flu season."
McMahon says school outbreaks peaked the second week of January, but now cases overall have declined significantly over the past two weeks.
She adds there is likely to be another influenza strain coming this spring.
Nationally, it's the same story with the CDC reporting it's the most severe season they've seen in at least 15 years.
One indicator of flu activity is the percentage of doctor’s office visits driven by flu-like symptoms. Last week, that number was clearly higher than the peak of any winter flu season since 2009-2010, when a swine flu pandemic hit the nation, according to data posted in February by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Of course, other viral infections can be mistaken for flu. But COVID-19 appears to be on the decline, according to hospital data and to CDC modeling projections. Available data also suggests another respiratory illness, RSV, has been fading nationally.