A flu season always runs from the 40th calendar week of one year to the 20th calendar week of the following year. During this period, around 292,000 influenza cases were reported to the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) in 2022/2023. This means that last flu season was the first with a high number of cases since Corona . Previously, the RKI had hardly recorded any influenza infections or deaths for two flu seasons, as a look at the Statista graphic shows.
The case numbers shown here only include laboratory-confirmed cases and deaths that are reported to the institute via a network of sentinel practices. In fact, the number of cases is significantly higher. For example, 1,674 deaths were reported to the RKI in the entire 2017/18 flu season (week 40 2017 to week 20 2018) - according to the excess estimate, 25,100 people died. The RKI answers frequently asked questions and answers about the flu on its website .
