Seattle Flu Study

Launched In 2018 To Transform How Infectious Disease Outbreaks Are Detected, Monitored, And Controlled, With A Focus On Influenza Epidemics And Pandemics

The Seattle Flu Study expanded our understanding of the transmission of upper respiratory viruses that can cause epidemics. The Seattle Flu Study was a collaborative effort in the Seattle and King County region led by The Brotman Baty Institute, UW Medicine, The Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, and Seattle Children’s. Learn more about the history and accomplishments of the Seattle Flu Study.

Seattle Flu Study researchers and principal investigators will continue to study respiratory viruses through the Seattle Flu Alliance, which is expanding to include other organizations and new initiatives.

The mission of the Seattle Flu Study (SFS), a BBI-led initiative launched in October 2018, is to transform how infectious disease outbreaks are detected, monitored, and controlled. The primary focus had been on influenza epidemics and pandemics. In January of 2020, the SFS team pivoted in response to the emerging COVID-19 pandemic. The following month, SFS reported one of the first cases of community transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in the United States.

SFS’s major collaborative projects launched through BBI include the Greater Seattle Coronavirus Assessment Network (SCAN) and UW Husky Testing. These endeavors have brought together leading researchers studying the transmission of viruses and ways to detect them early, thereby slowing their spread across the Seattle area.

More recently, goals include reaching more people in at-risk populations and making it easy to provide samples without leaving home. The SFS team also us studying how pathogens are transmitted in specific locations and settings.

Initial funding for the Seattle Flu Study was provided by Gates Ventures, the private office of Bill Gates.

As a reminder, SFS is not a clinical service or a replacement for medical care. If you are experiencing a severe illness such as difficulty breathing, please contact a doctor immediately. Once your swab has been returned to our lab, it may take 2-3 days for the status of your test result to be available. SFS tests for current COVID-19 illness. Our test cannot identify if you previously had COVID-19 and currently does not test for COVID-19 antibodies at this time. Regardless of whether or not your sample tests positive for COVID-19, we recommend you follow state, local and national guidelines for infection control and prevention.

Data:

Pathogen prevalence

The panels below show the percent of specimens with a detected respiratory pathogen, aggregated by week across Seattle Flu Study collection strategies. These results include both community and clinical samples, some of which are a part of contact testing. Proportions are not fully representative of what is happening across King County.

Hover over the top panel's areas to highlight individual pathogens and see precise percentages, fractions, and week number.

Click a pathogen name in the legend to select and toggle display of just that pathogen. More than one pathogen may be selected.

Hold shift and scroll the mouse wheel within either panel to zoom the time period displayed. Click and drag to shift the displayed time period earlier or later. Double click to reset the period to the full time range.

Data for the chart is updated daily and available at https://data.seattleflu.org/prevalence.csv. Data was last updated Thu Aug 05 2021 04:00:45 GMT-0700 (PDT). Complete code for the chart is available as an Observable notebook.

Specimens

The panels below show the volume of specimens tested for the respiratory pathogens above, aggregated by week across Seattle Flu Study collection strategies.

Hover over the areas in either panel to highlight individual collection channels and see precise counts, percentages, and week number.

Data for the chart is updated daily and available at https://data.seattleflu.org/specimens.csv. Data was last updated Thu Aug 05 2021 04:01:20 GMT-0700 (PDT). Complete code for the chart is available as an Observable notebook.

The metrics presented above show respiratory pathogens circulating in the Seattle metro area since 2018, as detected by the Seattle Flu Study and originally published at https://seattleflu.org/pathogens.