{"id":8482,"date":"2026-03-30T16:51:33","date_gmt":"2026-03-30T16:51:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/elearning.uia.no\/observatory\/?p=8482"},"modified":"2026-03-30T16:51:33","modified_gmt":"2026-03-30T16:51:33","slug":"is-covid-a-thing-of-the-past-flu-is-back-to-being-the-most-common-winter-ailment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/elearning.uia.no\/observatory\/2026\/03\/30\/is-covid-a-thing-of-the-past-flu-is-back-to-being-the-most-common-winter-ailment\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Covid a thing of the past? Flu is back to being the most common winter ailment"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>For the second consecutive winter, influenza has outpaced COVID-19 in the U.S., with approximately 25 million flu cases compared to between three to nine million COVID-19 infections since October. While COVID-19 is now considered endemic and symptoms have generally become milder due to increased population immunity, it remains a significant threat with a death toll comparable to that of the flu. Experts suggest that the high prevalence of influenza may be &#8220;crowding out&#8221; COVID-19 by generating non-specific immunity, though they remain uncertain about the trajectory of future variants. Despite the continued risks, COVID-19 vaccination rates among vulnerable groups have declined by 9% amid a shift in federal policy that has reduced vaccine recommendations and halted development contracts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Date:<\/strong> March 4, 2026. <strong>Source<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.independent.co.uk\/news\/health\/flu-covid-cases-us-pandemic-b2931856.html\">independent.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For the second consecutive winter, influenza has outpaced COVID-19 in the U.S., with approximately 25 million flu cases compared to between three to nine million COVID-19 infections since October. While COVID-19 is now considered endemic and symptoms have generally become milder due to increased population immunity, it remains a significant threat with a death toll [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":118,"featured_media":7201,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_eb_attr":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8482","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health-pandemics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/elearning.uia.no\/observatory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8482","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/elearning.uia.no\/observatory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/elearning.uia.no\/observatory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elearning.uia.no\/observatory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/118"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elearning.uia.no\/observatory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8482"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/elearning.uia.no\/observatory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8482\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8840,"href":"https:\/\/elearning.uia.no\/observatory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8482\/revisions\/8840"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elearning.uia.no\/observatory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7201"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/elearning.uia.no\/observatory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elearning.uia.no\/observatory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elearning.uia.no\/observatory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}