{"id":75515,"date":"2026-01-01T01:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-01-01T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.opinionpublica.tv\/portada\/?p=75515"},"modified":"2026-01-01T05:33:54","modified_gmt":"2026-01-01T12:33:54","slug":"flu-season-is-here","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.opinionpublica.tv\/portada\/flu-season-is-here\/","title":{"rendered":"Flu season is here"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Flu<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The flu came early this year. Britain, Australia and Japan have already seen spikes. The United States appears not far behind.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

New York City and its suburbs recently recorded some of the highest levels of flulike illness in the United States, my colleagues report. (A private school in Brooklyn closed for two days earlier this month after roughly a third of students became ill.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The numbers aren\u2019t great in Louisiana or Colorado either. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention\u2019s tracker shows spikes in Denver and in New Orleans and Lafayette, La.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The dominant strain of the flu virus circulating this season is H3N2 subclade K, reports Dani Blum, who covers health. H3N2 is a common strain. But the new variant \u2014 that subclade \u2014 is a doozy. It may enable the virus to spread more widely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The flu shot may not stop you from getting subclade K, but it helps guard against becoming seriously sick. Here\u2019s mom again: Get that jab.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How bad is it this year?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Britain, where I\u2019ve been for the last week, the flu season started so early and has accelerated so quickly that the tabloids here are calling it the \u201csuper flu.\u201d (I\u2019ve been working by open windows and dropping vitamin C tablets into my water \u2014 which does basically nothing, but makes me feel proactive.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s too soon to know if the same will happen in the United States, an expert told Dani. But there are a lot of infections, and we\u2019re still weeks from when doctors generally see high-water marks for the illness. In 2024, New York City didn\u2019t have 10,000 laboratory-reported cases of flu until late December. This year, the city crossed that threshold three weeks ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s earlier and faster this year, and the trajectory is much quicker than usual,\u201d the chief of public health and epidemiology at Northwell Health said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Symptoms and treatment<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vaccines remain the best way to protect yourself from the flu, perhaps during the holiday season especially. You\u2019ll come into contact with more people than usual on the plane, at the train station or if you\u2019re singing carols in a hall. Who knows who\u2019s carrying?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Experts say the best time to get vaccinated is in early fall. Still: \u201cI tell patients that it is generally never too late to get it,\u201d an infectious disease specialist told my colleague Maggie Astor, a health reporter. \u201cSome protection is better than none.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And there are additional ways to avoid risks. Dani knows them well:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Frequently washing hands, wearing a mask in crowds and improving ventilation as much as possible \u2014 by opening windows, if it\u2019s not too cold, or running air purifiers \u2014 can minimize the risk of catching the flu. So can disinfecting hard surfaces like phones, doorknobs and countertops, where the flu virus can linger for over a day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Based on the symptoms, it\u2019s hard to distinguish the flu from other respiratory illnesses. But the flu often comes on quickly, the way a truck might hit you in a crosswalk. There are now at-home tests that detect both Covid and the flu. Those are helpful because you can treat the flu virus with an antiviral medication like Tamiflu. (Would that we had something similar for the common cold.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stay safe, everyone. Now, let\u2019s see what else is happening in the world.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Credit: The New York Times<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Author: Sam Sifton<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The flu came early this year. Britain, Australia and Japan have already seen spikes. The United States appears not far behind. New York City and its suburbs recently recorded some of the highest levels of flulike illness in the United States, my colleagues report. (A private school in Brooklyn closed for two days earlier this […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":75520,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"slim_seo":{"title":"Flu season is here - Opini\u00f3n P\u00fablica","description":"The flu came early this year. Britain, Australia and Japan have already seen spikes. The United States appears not far behind. New York City and its suburbs rec"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1015],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-75515","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-optv-usa"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.opinionpublica.tv\/portada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75515","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.opinionpublica.tv\/portada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.opinionpublica.tv\/portada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.opinionpublica.tv\/portada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.opinionpublica.tv\/portada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75515"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.opinionpublica.tv\/portada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75515\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":75521,"href":"https:\/\/www.opinionpublica.tv\/portada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75515\/revisions\/75521"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.opinionpublica.tv\/portada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/75520"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.opinionpublica.tv\/portada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.opinionpublica.tv\/portada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.opinionpublica.tv\/portada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}