COVID-19, according to CDC data. Rates of influenza hospitalizations are more than three times higher than COVID-19 hospitalizations amid this season's record wave of flu infections. Partial CDC data suggest that influenza deaths may have already reached as high as 2% of deaths for the week ending on Feb.

During the first years of the COVID pandemic, elevated precautions mostly suppressed the perennial flu outbreaks that typically kill between 10,000 and 50,000 people annually in the United States.