{"id":562361,"date":"2026-03-25T02:12:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-25T02:12:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/562361\/"},"modified":"2026-03-25T02:12:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-25T02:12:09","slug":"flu-likely-back-to-normal-after-last-years-strange-season-aussie-expert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/562361\/","title":{"rendered":"Flu \u2018likely back to normal\u2019 after last year\u2019s strange season: Aussie expert"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The looming flu season will likely be shorter and quieter than last year\u2019s \u201cunusual\u201d seven-month season, a leading Australian expert says.<\/p>\n<p>Professor Ian Barr says the 2026 flu\u00a0season has started predictably, suggesting that more standard seasons are returning, several years on from the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n<p>Doctors reported just 23,500\u00a0lab-confirmed influenza cases between January and 23 March 2026, compared with more than 48,000 in the first quarter of 2025.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt would be very unusual to have two huge years in a row \u2014 and lasting that long,\u201d said Professor Barr, the deputy director of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Reference and Research on Influenza.<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\u00d7<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\t\tSign in\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p class=\"d-none message adg-password-reset\">\n\t\t\t\tIf this is your first visit to the new AusDoc website, reset your password<br \/>\n\t\t\t\t<a class=\"adg-reset_password_link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ausdoc.com.au\/wp-login.php?action=lostpassword\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">here.<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The looming flu season will likely be shorter and quieter than last year\u2019s \u201cunusual\u201d seven-month season, a leading&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":562362,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[64,63,137,89933,44],"class_list":{"0":"post-562361","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-influenza-flu","12":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/562361","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=562361"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/562361\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/562362"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=562361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=562361"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=562361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}