COVID-19 continues to dwarf influenza with the Hunter recording almost 20,000 cases of the coronavirus in the year to date, the latest NSW Respiratory Surveillance Report shows.
The report, released on Thursday, said 853 people were diagnosed with flu in NSW last week, a decrease of 16.5 per cent on the previous week.
Emergency department presentations for influenza-like illness requiring a hospital admission across the state fell from 32 to 26.
As for COVID, NSW recorded 11,503 cases last week, falling from 11,523 the previous week. There were 414 people in hospital with the virus, 43 in ICU and 39 deaths.
The Hunter New-England district recorded 36 people in hospital with COVID last week, six in ICU and four deaths.
The district recorded 1305 cases of COVID last week, rising from 1207 the previous week, and 19,163 in the year to date.
The Newcastle Herald reported last month that the NSW government and health groups urged people to get vaccinated for flu and COVID.
Hunter New England Health public health physician Craig Dalton said it was "not clear what kind of influenza year it will be at this stage".
"We probably still have some lower than average immunity because of the pandemic," he said.
"So there's potential for increased transmission but that's still unknowable."
And he said people shouldn't panic if they hear there's a case of swine flu circulating in the region.
The Herald asked Mr Dalton about swine flu, after a resident raised concerns about a case in Maitland Hospital.
"There's no emergence of a new swine influenza. We now call what was formerly swine flu just seasonal influenza," Mr Dalton said.
It became known as seasonal flu after becoming a "milder and recurrent seasonal strain year after year since 2009".
He said it was hard to predict "if or when COVID will settle into becoming a seasonal strain".
Mr Dalton said there are two main influenza A viruses - H3N2 and H1N1.
"The H1N1 that arose in 2009 is associated with the swine strain," he said.
"The H3N2 strain arose in 1968. They probably would have called it an avian or bird flu at that time because it had avian genes in it.
"Then after the excitement disappeared in the early '70s, it was called seasonal influenza."
Mr Dalton said the H3N2 strain "normally predominates".
"We can say this year there's been a bit more of a predominance of H1N1, which was formerly called swine flu," he said.
"There's people with H1N1 and H3N2 all across the country every day."
The flu vaccine covers these two influenza A types and influenza B.
Mr Dalton added that "anyone with influenza or suspected influenza is put under infection control precautions" when they're in hospital.
"It is highly infectious and can be nasty for people with poor immune systems.
"They'd maybe be put in a single room and people would wear masks when they care for them.
"That's standard procedure for influenza in any patient in hospital. Staff want to protect themselves and other patients."
Mr Dalton added that people can join the flutracking.net website, which monitors influenza and COVID-19, detects epidemics and contributes to scientific research.
"We've turned flutracking back on now," he said.
"If people want to join, they can give us a summary every Monday morning of their symptoms in the last week in 20 seconds."
Those who join will receive a weekly report on flu activity around the country.
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