Decreased Seasonal Influenza Rates Detected in a Crowdsourced Influenza-Like Illness Surveillance System During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Prospective Cohort Study
Authors: Gertz Autumn , Rader Benjamin , Sewalk Kara , Varrelman Tanner J , Smolinski Mark , Brownstein John S 
Published: November 2023

Background

Seasonal respiratory viruses had lower incidence during their 2019-2020 and 2020-2021 seasons, which overlapped with the COVID-19 pandemic. The widespread implementation of precautionary measures to prevent transmission of SARS-CoV-2 has been seen to also mitigate transmission of seasonal influenza. The COVID-19 pandemic also led to changes in care seeking and access. Participatory surveillance systems have historically captured mild illnesses that are often missed by surveillance systems that rely on encounters with a health care provider for detection.

Objective

This study aimed to assess if a crowdsourced syndromic surveillance system capable of detecting mild influenza-like illness (ILI) also captured the globally observed decrease in ILI in the 2019-2020 and 2020-2021 influenza seasons, concurrent with the COVID-19 pandemic.

Methods

Flu Near You (FNY) is a web-based participatory syndromic surveillance system that allows participants in the United States to report their health information using a brief weekly survey. Reminder emails are sent to registered FNY participants to report on their symptoms and the symptoms of household members. Guest participants may also report. ILI was defined as fever and sore throat or fever and cough. ILI rates were determined as the number of ILI reports over the total number of reports and assessed for the 2016-2017, 2017-2018, 2018-2019, 2019-2020, and 2020-2021 influenza seasons. Baseline season (2016-2017, 2017-2018, and 2018-2019) rates were compared to the 2019-2020 and 2020-2021 influenza seasons. Self-reported influenza diagnosis and vaccination status were captured and assessed as the total number of reported events over the total number of reports submitted. CIs for all proportions were calculated via a 1-sample test of proportions.

Results

ILI was detected in 3.8% (32,239/848,878) of participants in the baseline seasons (2016-2019), 2.58% (7418/287,909) in the 2019-2020 season, and 0.27% (546/201,079) in the 2020-2021 season. Both influenza seasons that overlapped with the COVID-19 pandemic had lower ILI rates than the baseline seasons. ILI decline was observed during the months with widespread implementation of COVID-19 precautions, starting in February 2020. Self-reported influenza diagnoses decreased from early 2020 through the influenza season. Self-reported influenza positivity among ILI cases varied over the observed time period. Self-reported influenza vaccination rates in FNY were high across all observed seasons.

Conclusions

A decrease in ILI was detected in the crowdsourced FNY surveillance system during the 2019-2020 and 2020-2021 influenza seasons, mirroring trends observed in other influenza surveillance systems. Specifically, the months within seasons that overlapped with widespread pandemic precautions showed decreases in ILI and confirmed influenza. Concerns persist regarding respiratory pathogens re-emerging with changes to COVID-19 guidelines. Traditional surveillance is subject to changes in health care behaviors. Systems like FNY are uniquely situated to detect disease across disease severity and care seeking, providing key insights during public health emergencies.