Even though there was one more H1N1 death reported in Orange County during the last week, the California Department of Public Health, CDPH, said the only region of the state where the epidemic continues is the Inland Empire. For the second time in as many weeks, CDPH downgraded the official description of the influenza epidemic in California. Further, for the first time since it began, Orange County has been removed from the epidemic list.

Last week CDPH downgraded the state’s characterization of the disease‘s prominence from “widespread disease”. To “regional”.
That ment less than 50% of the state’s 6 regions were reporting above average outbreaks. This week, it was downgraded from regional to local, which means that only one region, the Inland Empire, is reporting above normal influenza like illness. Thus, the state is now characterized to have only “local” above average flu activity.

This does not mean there is no longer any need to get the H1N1 vaccination. Dr. Gil Chavez, state epidemiologist with CDHP,said “This is the time when we actually need to get vaccinated. We truly believe that if we are able to maximize vaccinating the communities in California over the next couple of months, we will in fact, preempt a third wave of H1N1.

State officials believe the current reduction in H1N1 outbreaks are the tail of a so called second wave. During the last week, the number of new hospitalizations and deaths continued the decline which began back in October of last year.

Dr. Chavez said “Epidemics historically come in waves. We had a wave initially in the springtime, which is a time when we really should have had almost no influenza activity, so that’s when things started becoming different. That wave went down, and then we started a second wave that was a summer wave, when we normally have no influenza activity. That second wave is what is now subsiding. The question now is, will we have a third wave. In previous pandemics, there’s always been a third wave, so it is likely that we might. But, we are hoping that we can contain a third wave, and we have the way to do it.
If we can get more people vaccinated in the state, we believe that we can get to a point, that regardless of what happens worldwide, we won’t have a third wave in California.”

State officials are concerned that with the declining prominence of H1N1 in California, people may think there is no need for vaccinations. But Chavez continued “we need to understand that vaccination is actually something that has to be routine, whether or not there is an outbreak going on. We don’t wait for an outbreak of mumps to vaccinate our children for mumps. You do it so you can prevent outbreaks. With influenza and H1N1, it’s not any different. We feel the more people we vaccinate, no matter what happens worldwide, we will be in a position where we won’t experience a third wave in the state. We still think that we have about half the population of the state susceptible to H1N1, so we leave ourselves open to more problems with H1N1 if we don’t vaccinate more individuals.”