Flu season is off to a fast start in Texas. What can we expect? An expert breaks it down
In a normal year, the spread of seasonal influenza viruses starts increasing in December in Texas.
This year isn’t a normal year.
“(Our flu season) was off to a quick start,” said Dr. Jennifer Shuford, the interim commissioner of the state health department. “We have much higher influenza-like illness activity than we typically see this time of year.”
Although the spread of flu is “very high” in Texas, according to state and federal trackers, that doesn’t mean this flu season will necessarily be worse than normal. Here’s what we know so far about influenza, and what we’re still waiting to find out.
How do we know flu activity is increasing in Texas
There are a few reasons that people who study influenza viruses are concerned about this year’s season.
Unlike with COVID-19, the U.S. doesn’t track every single case of flu that gets diagnosed. Instead, public health officials use a sampling of health care providers, like doctors’ offices and hospitals, and look at how many of their patients are reporting influenza-like illness. This includes any patient who is complaining of fever and either a cough or a sore throat.
In Texas, almost 10% of visits were for influenza-like illness in the second week of November, a much higher share than in a typical year. And there have been at least 10 influenza outbreaks in schools and day cares across the state, according to a report from the Texas Department of State Health Services.
What we can predict about this year’s flu season
Flu seasons are famously hard to predict, because the virus changes so much from year to year. In addition to the virus itself, lots of other factors impact how easily an influenza virus can spread from one person to another.
But we can some hints from the southern hemisphere, which experiences its seasonal flu season before the U.S., said Dr. Richard Webby, a virologist at St. Jude’s Children Research Hospital.
“If we look at what happened in a number of countries down there, they peaked and then they went right back down,” Webby said. “If we look at that, that’s kind of what we might expect here; activity will peak in a peak and then a decline.”
But the U.S. flu season could still hold some surprises, especially since there are so many winter months left, he said.
It’s also too soon to say how severe the strains of flu circulating this year are, or how sick the average person who gets the flu will become.
In Australia, Webby said, there was a high number of flu infections, but a relatively low hospitalization rate. That could happen in the U.S. as well, Webby said, but it’s still too early to estimate how severe this flu season will be in terms of illness and deaths.
Right now, about 86% of intensive care unit beds in Tarrant County hospitals are occupied, according to data reported to the federal government. But we don’t how many of those patients have the flu or other illnesses.
Children’s hospitals throughout Texas were full during the last weeks of October and first weeks of November, thanks to a combination of the flu, respiratory syncytial virus, and other respiratory viruses circulating.
What we know about this year’s flu vaccine
In a given year, about 40% to 50% of Texans will get a seasonal flu shot.
Although the flu shot doesn’t provide complete protection, it does reduce your risk of getting seriously sick or dying from influenza, Webby said.
This year, the flu vaccine looks like it will be a good match for the strains of influenza circulating. In Chile, the flu vaccine reduced risk of hospitalization by 49%.
Although the vaccine’s effectiveness varies from year to year, Webby said, the vaccine will always provide some amount of protection, and reduce your risk of dying from influenza.
If you have a health insurance plan that is compliant with the Affordable Care Act, you should be able to get a flu shot for free. If you are uninsured, there are dozens of pharmacies throughout Tarrant County that are offering free flu shots to Tarrant County residents.
