Welcome to the Northeast edition of Outbreak Outlook! It is only available to paid subscribers. If you wish to become a paid subscriber and access region-specific information, please click the Subscribe now button below. Thanks for reading! -Caitlin

Summer Plans

Important note: As summer approaches, the availability of data on respiratory diseases has dwindled. Influenza-like illness reporting is paused in most states, and Covid-19 hospitalization reporting has ended. This means there is less for me to cover in Outbreak Outlook. While I plan to continue to provide weekly updates for paid subscribers, I’m going to put them into a single report rather than the usual four regional reports for the summer months. Expect these updates to be less detailed until the fall when regular data collection and reporting resume.

Respiratory Diseases

ILI

Influenza and influenza-like illness is taking its summer break. Very few people are ending up at the doctor’s office or other outpatient clinical settings for influenza-like illness.

New Jersey has been reporting rates noticeably higher than its neighbors for the past several weeks (3.09% compared to <1.75% in every other state in the region), but I expect it to catch up in the next several weeks.

Spotlight on New York: Influenza-like illness at the state level is very low at 1.1%. There was a slight increase in the Western part of the state, but still below 2%. ILI in the city is quite a bit higher at 4%, but it is declining (slowly).

Northeast Region: Change in ILI Activity

Percent of doctors visits for ILI symptoms

Similarly, very few people are being hospitalized for influenza in the Northeast. Two Northeastern states contribute to the CDC’s sentinel surveillance: Connecticut and New York. Connecticut reported 0.4 influenza-related admissions per 100,000 population, and New York reported 0.7.

COVID-19

Hospitalization data looks a bit different this week because, as of May 1, hospitals are no longer required to report Covid-19 or influenza hospital admissions. While they can report voluntarily, this past week ~1% of hospitals in most states did so. As such, the data presented here are from the CDC’s sentinel surveillance network (RESP-NET) that pulls from a subset of hospitals in a sample of states and covers ~10% of the U.S. population.

The quiet spell continues with Covid-19, with low levels in the wastewater, and few people ending up in the emergency department or hospitalized.

Wastewater data show very low concentrations of Covid-19 in the Northeast. Covid-19 is sending very few people to the emergency department – Covid-19 accounts for <0.5% of ED visits across the Northeast (the CDC categorizes anything <1.5% as “minimal”). Hospitalizations for Covid-19 similarly remain quite low in the Northeast, with the two states that contribute to the CDC’s sentinel surveillance network (Connecticut and New York) reporting that they admitted between 1 and 2 cases to the hospital per 100,000 population

Wastewater concentration by region. Source: CDC

Stomach Bugs

Some good news! There was a nice drop-off this past week in test positivity for norovirus in the Northeast, down to roughly 8% from around 10% the week before.

Food recalls

The following foods are being recalled because they are contaminated. Please check your cupboards and throw out any of these items:

New

• Yogurt covered pretzels by Western Mixers Produce & Nuts, Inc. (more info)
• White-coated candy sold by Palmer Candy Company of Sioux City, Iowa (more info)
• HyVee Cream Cheese (more info)

Previously reported:

• Planters Honey Roasted Peanuts and Deluxe Lightly Salted Mixed Nuts (more info)
• California Shelled Walnuts, Organic Light Halves and Pieces (more info)
• Ground beef by Cargill (more info)
• Trader Joe’s 50% Less Salt Roasted & Salted Whole Cashews (more info)
• If you have food allergies, you may wish to review these FDA safety alerts and USDA alerts for foods with undeclared allergens.

In other news

• A nurse in upstate New York has been accused by the New York State Department of Health (NYSDOH) of falsifying vaccine records for 116 children, involving nearly 550 vaccinations. Operating out of “Surviving Naturally” in Monroe County, the nurse allegedly submitted false data to the New York State Immunization Information System (NYSIIS) from July 2019 to February 2021. She reportedly claimed to have administered vaccines that were never given, leaving children unprotected against diseases like measles, chickenpox, and polio. The NYSDOH has fined the woman $55,000 for her actions and permanently barred her from the NYSIIS.