Weekly influenza cases nearly double in Maine over last 3 weeks
Feb. 19—Influenza continues to spread rapidly in Maine, with more than 2,000 confirmed cases last week, the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention said.
Maine recorded 2,028 cases of influenza for the week ending Feb. 15, the highest so far in the 2024-25 flu season, and about double the number of weekly cases Maine reported three weeks earlier. Flu season runs from October to May, and while the peak of the season can vary, February is often a month when Maine will experience the most new infections.
For the previous week, ending Feb. 8, the Maine CDC reported 1,916 cases.
Hospitalizations for influenza have also climbed, with 145 last week, and 711 total hospitalizations for the season.
Most of the state is considered to be in the "moderate" to "high" category for influenza cases, with Piscataquis and Washington counties in the "very high" category. About 90% of influenza activity is the influenza A strain, and the remaining 10% is influenza B.
There have not been any recorded human cases of bird flu in Maine and no reported domesticated animal cases in 2025. However, Maine has had some cases of bird flu reported in wild animals, and state officials have warned people with chickens, ducks or other domesticated birds to take precautions.
Federal data lags state data by one week, but according to the most recent U.S. CDC data, Maine and much of the nation is considered to have "very high" levels of flu, with the only exceptions being some states in the Midwest and West, including Utah, Nevada and Arizona.
The flu is circulating at the same time as other respiratory illnesses.
Maine is reporting "high" levels of COVID-19 in wastewater, down from "very high" in late January. RSV and norovirus were also reportedly circulating at high levels in Maine this winter, although there is not a robust data tracking of those viruses.
The best way to prevent influenza is to get a flu shot, and it is not too late to get vaccinated. Many places offer flu shots, including primary care offices, pharmacies and other health care settings. Public health experts say to take other measures to prevent illness and the spread of flu, such as frequent hand washing, staying home when sick and avoiding crowded, indoor gatherings.
Influenza symptoms include fever and chills, cough, sore throat, muscle aches, headache, fatigue and a runny nose.
Copy the Story Link
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
9 hours ago
- Yahoo
Press Release: Sanofi accelerates global shipping of Beyfortus to prepare healthcare providers months ahead of 2025-2026 RSV season
Sanofi accelerates global shipping of Beyfortus to prepare healthcare providers months ahead of 2025-2026 RSV season Paris, June 9, 2025. Sanofi is shipping Beyfortus (nirsevimab) starting in early Q3 to ensure broad availability well ahead of the 2025-2026 respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) season, which typically starts in November and runs through March. Immunizations begin in early fall and these advance shipments provide confidence for healthcare providers to support their efforts. Demand has continued to increase since the launch of Beyfortus, the only option that can offer RSV protection designed for all infants with proven high, sustained efficacy through a typical RSV season and an unparalleled body of real-world evidence. Sanofi, in collaboration with its partner AstraZeneca, has tripled production capacity and doubled the number of manufacturing sites since the launch of Beyfortus in 2023. Current supply for the upcoming season already matches the total doses distributed last year and production continues. Last season in the US, enough doses were produced to cover every infant — a benchmark that reflects both Sanofi's and AstraZeneca's global commitment to ensuring timely access for all infants. Executive Vice President, Vaccines'Our third year of providing RSV protection marks a transformative era in infant health. Backed by more than 40 real-world studies involving 250,000 immunized infants, Beyfortus has consistently proven itself as an effective RSV immunization. To meet growing demand since launch, we have meticulously primed our global distribution network to ensure Beyfortus will continue to deliver significant public health impact and offer high, sustained efficacy for infants regardless of underlying health conditions or the timing of when they are born.' Beyfortus duration of protection extended through six months in the EUThis year's EU shipments are marked by an important change to the Beyfortus EU label extending the duration of protection through six months, so Beyfortus can continue to offer season-long protection for all infants, including older babies immunized just before the RSV season begins. More than six million babies have been immunized worldwide and millions more will be immunized this season in more than 40 countries to help protect them from the potentially devastating impact of RSV disease. All infants are at risk from RSVRSV is a highly contagious virus infecting two out of three infants in their first year of life and nearly all children by their second birthday. RSV is the main cause of lower respiratory tract disease and a leading cause of hospitalization in all infants worldwide, with most hospitalizations occurring in healthy infants born at term. With an extended half-life of 71 days, Beyfortus stands apart as the longest-acting monoclonal antibody for the prevention of RSV lower respiratory tract disease in infants, and the only RSV immunization designed to protect all infants born before or during the RSV season, at term or preterm, healthy or with underlying conditions. Administration can be timed to coincide with the RSV season and provided directly to newborns and infants as a single dose. Beyfortus offers rapid protection without requiring activation of the immune system. Beyfortus is also designed to protect children up to 24 months of age who remain vulnerable to severe RSV disease through their second RSV season. Beyfortus was approved and granted special designations to expedite development across major geographies including the US, the EU, Japan and China. About Sanofi Sanofi is an R&D driven, AI-powered biopharma company committed to improving people's lives and delivering compelling growth. We apply our deep understanding of the immune system to invent medicines and vaccines that treat and protect millions of people around the world, with an innovative pipeline that could benefit millions more. Our team is guided by one purpose: we chase the miracles of science to improve people's lives; this inspires us to drive progress and deliver positive impact for our people and the communities we serve, by addressing the most urgent healthcare, environmental, and societal challenges of our time. Sanofi is listed on EURONEXT: SAN and NASDAQ: SNY Media RelationsSandrine Guendoul | +33 6 25 09 14 25 | Evan Berland | +1 215 432 0234 | Le Bourhis | +33 6 75 06 43 81 | Rouault | +33 6 70 93 71 40 | Timothy Gilbert | +1 516 521 2929 | Léa Ubaldi | +33 6 30 19 66 46 | Investor RelationsThomas Kudsk Larsen | +44 7545 513 693 | Kaisserian | +33 6 47 04 12 11 | Felix Lauscher | +1 908 612 7239 | Browne | +1 781 249 1766 | Nathalie Pham | +33 7 85 93 30 17 | Tarik Elgoutni | +1 617 710 3587 | Châtelet | +33 6 80 80 89 90 | Yun Li | +33 6 84 00 90 72 | Sanofi forward-looking statementsThis press release contains forward-looking statements as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, as amended. Forward-looking statements are statements that are not historical facts. These statements include projections and estimates regarding the marketing and other potential of the product, or regarding potential future revenues from the product. Forward-looking statements are generally identified by the words 'expects', 'anticipates', 'believes', 'intends', 'estimates', 'plans', and similar expressions. Although Sanofi's management believes that the expectations reflected in such forward-looking statements are reasonable, investors are cautioned that forward-looking information and statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties, many of which are difficult to predict and generally beyond the control of Sanofi, that could cause actual results and developments to differ materially from those expressed in, or implied or projected by, the forward-looking information and statements. These risks and uncertainties include among other things, unexpected regulatory actions or delays, or government regulation generally, that could affect the availability or commercial potential of the product, the fact that product may not be commercially successful, the uncertainties inherent in research and development, including future clinical data and analysis of existing clinical data relating to the product, including post marketing, unexpected safety, quality or manufacturing issues, competition in general, risks associated with intellectual property and any related future litigation and the ultimate outcome of such litigation, and volatile economic and market conditions, and the impact that global crises may have on us, our customers, suppliers, vendors, and other business partners, and the financial condition of any one of them, as well as on our employees and on the global economy as a whole. The risks and uncertainties also include the uncertainties discussed or identified in the public filings with the SEC and the AMF made by Sanofi, including those listed under 'Risk Factors' and 'Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Statements' in Sanofi's annual report on Form 20-F for the year ended December 31, 2024. Other than as required by applicable law, Sanofi does not undertake any obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information or statements. All trademarks mentioned in this press release are the property of the Sanofi group. Attachment Press ReleaseError in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Yahoo
How AI could help stop the next pandemic before it starts
Could artificial intelligence tools be used to stop the next pandemic before it starts? During the Covid pandemic, new technology developed by researchers at Johns Hopkins and Duke universities didn't exist. But, for the first time, researchers there say they've devised a revolutionary large language modeling tool - the type of generative AI used in ChatGP - to help predict the spread of any infectious disease, such as bird flu, monkeypox, and RSV. That could help save lives and reduce infections. 'Covid-19 elucidated the challenge of predicting disease spread due to the interplay of complex factors that were constantly changing,' Johns Hopkins' Lauren Gardner, a modeling expert who created the Covid dashboard that was relied upon by people worldwide during the pandemic, said in a statement. 'When conditions were stable the models were fine. However, when new variants emerged or policies changed, we were terrible at predicting the outcomes because we didn't have the modeling capabilities to include critical types of information,' she added. 'The new tool fills this gap.' Gardner was one of the authors of the study published Thursday in the Nature Computational Science journal. The tool, named PandemicLLM, considers recent infection spikes, new variants, and stringent protective measures. The researchers utilized data that had never been used before in pandemic prediction tools, finding that PandemicLLM could accurately predict disease patterns and hospitalization trends one to three weeks out. The data included rates of cases hospitalizations and vaccines, types of government policies, characteristics of disease variants and their prevalence, and state-level demographics. The model incorporates these elements to predict how they will come together and affect how disease behaves. They retroactively applied PandemicLLM to the Covid pandemic, looking at each state over the course of 19 months. The authors said the tool was particularly successful when the outbreak was in flux. It also outperformed existing state-of-the-art forecasting methods, including the highest performing ones on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's CovidHub. 'Traditionally we use the past to predict the future,' author Hao 'Frank' Yang, a Johns Hopkins assistant professor of civil and systems engineering, said. 'But that doesn't give the model sufficient information to understand and predict what's happening. Instead, this framework uses new types of real-time information.' Going forward, they are looking at how large language models can replicate the ways individuals make decisions about their health. They hope that such a model would help officials to design safer and more effective policies. More than a million Americans have died from Covid. It's not a matter of if there will be a next pandemic, but when. Right now, the U.S. is dealing with the spread of H5N1 bird flu, RSV, HMPV, pertussis, and measles, among other health concerns. Vaccination rates for measles have plunged since the pandemic, and general vaccine hesitancy has increased. That has resulted in fears that the nation could see decades of health progress reversed. Furthermore, U.S. health officials have acted to separate from global efforts to respond to pandemics, withdrawing from the World Health Organization earlier this year. Last month, they limited access to Covid vaccines for certain groups. 'We know from Covid-19 that we need better tools so that we can inform more effective policies,' Gardner said. 'There will be another pandemic, and these types of frameworks will be crucial for supporting public health response.'
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Yahoo
Down 80%, Should You Buy the Dip on Moderna?
Moderna stock has dropped along with demand for a product that once drove tremendous growth: the coronavirus vaccine. Investors have remained focused on those declines -- and haven't yet recognized Moderna's long-term potential. 10 stocks we like better than Moderna › A few years ago, Moderna (NASDAQ: MRNA) stock represented the ticket to an investing win. The company brought its coronavirus vaccine from drawing board to commercialization in less than a year and saw its stock price skyrocket. The biotech went on to generate billions of dollars in revenue and profit amid soaring demand for its vaccine in those earlier days of the pandemic. But in later stages of the health crisis, fewer people rushed to get vaccinated, and this had a significant impact on Moderna's earnings -- and stock performance. Though Moderna has since won approval for updated versions of its vaccine and approval for another respiratory shot and the company has cut costs, the earnings and stock performance path remain difficult. But there are reasons to be optimistic about Moderna's long-term prospects as it has a robust late-stage pipeline ready to potentially deliver several products. Considering the full picture, down 80% over the past year, is Moderna a buy? Let's find out. So, as mentioned, Moderna was a brilliant success story just a few years ago. The company even proved the safety and efficacy of a new technology based on messenger RNA. This is important because it's a technology Moderna uses throughout its pipeline. The company's mRNA technique involves teaching the body to produce a particular protein that will protect it from or help it fight a virus or disease. Considering the depth of the pandemic, regulators helped speed coronavirus vaccines to the finish line, but it's worth keeping in mind that these products were based on years of research. Now, of course, investors have to be more patient and wait longer for Moderna's products to earn a regulatory nod because they aren't being approved for an early pandemic situation. As a result, Moderna right now continues to generate most of its revenue from the coronavirus vaccine, and it also brings in revenue from sales of its respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccine, approved last year. Unfortunately for Moderna and its investors, however, coronavirus vaccine sales have declined, and the RSV vaccine hasn't performed as well as initially expected. But before throwing in the towel on Moderna, it's key to remember that better days are likely down the road. The company is at a point of transition right now as it prepares for what could be a great number of product launches ahead. In fact, Moderna recently reiterated it may roll out as many as 10 new products within the next few years. These products represent a total addressable market of $30 billion, so this could offer revenue a major boost. These programs also span many indications, from cytomegalovirus to oncology -- this is positive because Moderna won't depend on just one or two treatment areas in the future, reducing risk if one product sees a slowdown. It's also important to note that there's less risk of a slowdown when treating an ever-present virus or disease versus dealing with a pandemic situation -- pandemics result in steep gains, but when the situation improves, sales may sharply drop off. Meanwhile, Moderna has progressed nicely on its cost cutting program, and beyond this year, plans to reduce as much as $1.7 billion in estimated GAAP operating costs by 2027. Now let's return to our question: After Moderna's 80% drop, is the stock a buy? Moderna still faces challenges ahead. For example, the company recently lost U.S. government funding for its investigational bird flu vaccine, and uncertainty about the policies of President Trump's administration on vaccines could add to headwinds. On top of this, investors still often view Moderna as a COVID vaccine company and focus on declines in demand for that product. These elements could weigh on the stock's performance. But for investors who don't mind some volatility and plan on holding on to the stock for at least five years, Moderna makes an exciting biotech buy right now. If the company even partially reaches its product launch goal, the long-term revenue picture could look very bright. Before you buy stock in Moderna, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the for investors to buy now… and Moderna wasn't one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $657,385!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $842,015!* Now, it's worth noting Stock Advisor's total average return is 987% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 171% for the S&P 500. Don't miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join . See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of June 2, 2025 Adria Cimino has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool recommends Moderna. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Down 80%, Should You Buy the Dip on Moderna? was originally published by The Motley Fool
