Feeling flu? Here's how Austin Public Health tracks illness post-pandemic
AUSTIN (KXAN) — You’re hearing it from health agencies and you might be feeling it in your circles right now. It’s the season for being sick.
“Fortunately, I think we’re at the peak of our flu season. The numbers have sort of flattened out between last week and this week’s report, and we’re hoping that we’re going to be on the downward slide,” said Janet Pichette, chief epidemiologist and assistant director at Austin Public Health (APH).
How is APH tracking that?
During the COVID-19 pandemic, APH had a dashboard and gave regular briefings on infectious diseases to both the public and local leaders, so it may have been easier for you to track what was going around and how bad.
Austin Public Health said it’s still doing much of the same tracking behind the scenes and working to push that information to the public.
“We have a system where we engage clinical providers or physicians out in the community, those that run big practices, and when they see patients that come in who have influenza-like illness we ask them to take samples for flu or RSV or COVID and we send that off to the lab,” Pichette said.
APH also still tracks hospitalizations and deaths related to those illnesses.
“And then finally since COVID, one tool that we’ve adopted that we work with the Centers for Disease Control and the state on is doing wastewater surveillance for those conditions,” Pichette said.
That said, with a shuffle in priorities happening at the White House, APH said it’s closely monitoring resources it may lose especially when it comes to tracking infectious diseases like flu and COVID-19.
“If funding were to go away, there may be some things that also go away like the federal wastewater surveillance system…we are concerned and we’re monitoring closely whether we’ll lose access to any data sources,” Pichette said.
How can you track what’s going around?
While the COVID-19 dashboard run by the city has been retired, APH does have its flu trend page. That page doesn’t capture the total number of cases but looks at overall trends for flu-like illnesses.
“There’s a link for a weekly report that we update every week, and it will give you a more detailed view and analysis of what’s circulating in the community,” Pichette said.
The state of Texas also has a respiratory illness dashboard, which you can find here.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, COVID-19 was labeled a “reportable disease condition,” Pichette explained. That required all providers — like nurses, hospital systems and health care providers — to report outbreaks and positive tests to health departments like APH.
That designation for COVID-19 has since gone away and those groups are no longer legally required to report cases, she said.
