Flu season steadily peaks in February, so it’s no longer too overdue to get children immunized

This 12 months, COVID-19 vaccines had been the topic of the entirety from presidential speeches to hip-hop track parodies. Mavens are pronouncing that COVID-19 vaccination is particularly essential because the U.S. heads into the vacation season, when chilly climate will intersect with circle of relatives gatherings around the nation. However the novel coronavirus isn’t the one respiration illness that can hit the rustic this iciness.

Iciness additionally marks the height of flu season within the Northern Hemisphere. Whilst the flu isn’t steadily at the vanguard of maximum American citizens’ minds, it does take a heavy toll at the nation. The illness has killed between 12,000 and 52,000 folks a 12 months between 2010 and 2020, in line with the Facilities for Illness Keep watch over and Prevention (CDC). Tens of millions extra folks grow to be inflamed with the flu, and masses of hundreds require hospitalizations.

In 2021, many public well being mavens are involved that the flu season might be in particular onerous at the U.S. Remaining 12 months’s flu season was once strangely gentle, in large part due to in style mask-wearing, social distancing, lowered trip, and different COVID-19 precautions. However this 12 months, as restrictions had been lifted around the nation, the flu may pack a more difficult punch. American citizens’ immune techniques can have forgotten how to give protection to in opposition to the flu as a result of many people weren’t uncovered closing 12 months, explains Dr. Katelyn Jetelina, writer of Your Native Epidemiologist.

Stacker compiled a listing of 10 key details for this 12 months’s flu season from the CDC, the Affiliation for Well being Care Newshounds, and different clinical and information assets. Learn on to be informed when to get your flu shot, who’s eligible, and extra.

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