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\n Flu continues to bring misery across the US, with all but four states showing high or very high levels of activity as a new virus strain called subclade K continues to spread.\n <\/p>\n
\n By another measure \u2013 visits to the doctor for fever plus a cough or sore throat, which are common flu symptoms \u2013 the US is at its highest level of respiratory illness since at least the 1997-98 flu season, according to data<\/a> published Monday by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. <\/strong>\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cThis is definitely a banner year,\u201d said Dr. Caitlin Rivers, an epidemiologist and senior scholar at Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. \u201cIt\u2019s the worst we\u2019ve had in at least 20 years. We\u2019re seeing a majority of the country is experiencing very high levels of activity, and we\u2019re still in the thick of it.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n It\u2019s striking to see such an intense season coming off last year\u2019s bad flu season, she noted, as bad years don\u2019t typically occur back to back.\n <\/p>\n \n Nationally, about 8.2% of doctor visits were for flu-like symptoms during the last week of the year. At the same point last season, which was also brisk, that number was 6.7%.\n <\/p>\n \n In Massachusetts, which is reporting very high levels of flu activity, health officials urged people to get vaccinated.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cThis is a moment for clarity, urgency, and action,\u201d Public Health Commissioner Dr. Robbie Goldstein said in a news release. \u201cThese viruses are serious, dangerous, and life-threatening. We are seeing children who are seriously ill, families grieving devastating losses, and hospitals under capacity strain.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cThere is a simple, effective, and available way to address these concerns: vaccines,\u201d he added. \u201cThey can prevent serious illness and hospitalization. And they save lives. If you have not yet been vaccinated against flu or COVID-19 this season, now is the time. It is not too late. Choosing vaccination is choosing to protect yourself, your family, your friends, your colleagues, and your community.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Nearly all US states were at high or very high levels of flu activity in the latest data. Montana and Vermont reported low levels of activity, while South Dakota and West Virginia reported moderate levels. Nevada didn\u2019t report flu data this week but showed high levels of flu activity in last week\u2019s report.\n <\/p>\n \n In terms of severity \u2013 how many people have been hospitalized by the flu \u2013 this season is not a standout yet. The cumulative hospitalization rate is the third highest by this point in the season since 2010-11, but that could change as more people are infected.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cIn the next 48 hours, if you haven\u2019t been vaccinated, get vaccinated. Don\u2019t wait,\u201d said Dr. Michael Osterholm who directs the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. \u201cYou know, you may still be able to protect yourself from the the last parts of the seasonal epidemic, but you know, it takes us, seven to 10 days to develop some immunity relative to the vaccine, and so you don\u2019t have a lot of time to waste,\u201d he added.\n <\/p>\n \n The CDC estimates that at least 11 million people have had the flu this season, 120,000 have been hospitalized with it and 5,000 people have died.\n <\/p>\n \n The agency also received another report of a child\u2019s death, bringing the total number of children who\u2019ve died of influenza this season to nine.\n <\/p>\n \n Flu vaccinations have been dropping in children, from a high of 53% over the 2019-20 flu season to 42% at the same point this season.\n <\/p>\n \n The new flu data came the same day the US Department of Health and Human services announced a plan to modify the childhood vaccine schedule. The changes would recommend that kids get flu vaccines after a consultation with a health care provider, a provision called shared clinical decision-making, which could make the shots harder for people to access.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cTo back off on a flu recommendation in the midst of a pretty severe flu year seems to me to be pretty tone-deaf, and that\u2019s coming off an influenza year where we had the most childhood deaths from influenza in many years,\u201d said Dr. Sean O\u2019Leary, chair of the American Academy of Pediatrics\u2019 Committee on Infectious Diseases.\n <\/p>\n \n Shots are also down in adults, from nearly 61 million in 2019-20 to roughly 48 million this year, CDC data shows<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n \n Rivers said she didn\u2019t think the lagging vaccination rates were playing a role in the high volume of cases this year.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cThe vaccine is not really expected to protect against infection and therefore transmission. It\u2019s really just about preventing severe illness,\u201d she said.\n <\/p>\n \n Instead, she says, the new flu strain \u2013 subclade K, which represents most viruses analyzed by labs \u2013 seems to be the reason for the intensity.\n <\/p>\n \n She said that strain is just different enough from the flu viruses people have been exposed to in the past to get around our immune defenses.\n <\/p>\n \n Subclade K began to spread after strains were chosen for this year\u2019s flu shots, which means the vaccines probably offer only partial protection against it.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cI think that this virus, like we saw in Australia and Japan and to some degree in the United Kingdom, has some legs to it,\u201d Osterholm said. \u201cI think you\u2019re going to continue to see activity in communities for at least another three to four weeks of some real, substantial nature.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n CNN\u2019s Jen Christensen contributed to this report.<\/em>\n <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n Flu continues to bring misery across the US, with all but four states showing high or very high levels of activity as a new virus strain called subclade K continues to spread. By another measure \u2013 visits to the doctor for fever plus a cough or sore throat, which are common flu symptoms \u2013 the … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15964,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15963","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Flu-reaches-highest-levels-in-the-US-in-25-years.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15963","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15963"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15963\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15965,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15963\/revisions\/15965"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/15964"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15963"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15963"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jubi24.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15963"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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