More than 140,000 cases of acute respiratory infections were recorded last week, a record for December in at least ten years, according to data from the National Institute of Public Health (INSP), consulted by G4Media.ro.
INSP also notes, for the previous week, that the average number of cases in the same period for the previous 5 seasons before the COVID pandemic (years 2015-2019) was 64,049 acute respiratory infections. Thus, the number recorded now represents an increase of 119.7%.
Acute respiratory infections include cases of clinical influenza (cases with obvious flu symptoms noted by a doctor but not confirmed by laboratory tests), acute upper respiratory infections (ARI) and pneumonia.
According to the INSP methodology, an epidemic week is considered to be a week in which influenza activity is above the epidemic threshold, i.e. above specialists’ estimates. An influenza epidemic is declared when three weeks in a row have passed which are epidemic weeks.
Usually, the peak of the flu season is in February.
In the last ten years, there have been more cases in the weeks of 27 January – 2 February 2020 alone with over 171,000 acute respiratory infections, 3 – 9 February 2020 with over 165,000 cases,
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