With months left of flu season, influenza cases are on the rise in California and transmission is high in the Bay Area, data shows.
Doctors at local hospitals are busy treating flu patients or those with complications such as pneumonia and heart issues. They’re encouraging residents to keep themselves and their neighbors healthy by getting vaccinated — which reduces the risk of serious illness — washing their hands, and, in crowded settings, wearing masks.
“I don’t think we’re out of the woods yet,” said Rakesh Chaudhary, physician-in-chief at Kaiser Permanente’s Santa Clara Medical Center.
Flu season started slowly in California this year. But after people gathered for the holidays, doctors and nurses at Kaiser San Jose Medical Center began noticing more patients sick with the flu or related complications, said Patrick Whiteley, the hospital’s chief of emergency medicine.
Now, the 36-bed emergency department is seeing more than 260 patients a day, he said. Among them are many children sick with flu or its complications, Whiteley said.
Statewide data shows the San Jose hospital is no outlier. The percentage of positive flu tests surged from single digits to nearly 20% during the holidays. After a dip in January, cases spiked again and hit a seasonal high this week, the data shows.
Until the recent surge, this flu season, which started in fall and will end in spring, had been milder in California than the previous season. With cases now on the rise, children, older adults and those with compromised immune systems have an increased risk of serious illness, doctors and public health experts said.
“Flu can be deadly,” said Peter Chin-Hong, a professor of medicine at UC San Francisco who specializes in treating infectious diseases. “It’s deadly every year.”
The flu is a collection of viruses that cause respiratory illness, which spreads through coughs and sneezes. They can also remain on surfaces after an infected person has left the room. Millions of people in the U.S. get the flu each season, and for most, symptoms are mild: coughing, a sore throat, a runny nose and perhaps a fever.
Adults over 65 and kids can be hit harder by the flu, and the illness can lead to hospitalizations and deaths. A brutal flu season played out in California last year: More than 1,600 people died from influenza, 44 of whom were children.
This flu season kicked off in North America with worry. In August, global health authorities noticed that a mutation of an influenza virus called ‘Subclade K’ was spreading quickly in other countries. Some media reports dubbed the variant a “super bug,” and the term spread, raising concern the flu would bring worse symptoms this year.
Early outbreaks hit the United Kingdom, Japan and Canada, the Associated Press reported. In the U.S., the variant then fueled big spikes in flu cases in New York, Colorado and Louisiana by the year’s end.
The variant is now spreading fast in California. But in a welcome trend for doctors, far fewer flu patients are dying. Flu and its complications caused only 177 deaths between July and Jan. 30, according to state data. Two children have died, including one in San Mateo County. At the same time, more than 900 Californians died from COVID-19.
Doctors and experts in the Bay Area said it’s unclear if the flu will continue to surge or level off.
“You really never know why the virus acts like it does,” said Yvonne Maldonado, Stanford professor of global health and infectious diseases. “No flu year is a good flu year, and we know every year will be a flu year.”
In San Jose, Whiteley is holding his breath.
“I don’t know if it will hit as high as it did last year,” he said.
Along with more severe flu symptoms, the virus can bring serious complications to children and older adults. Last flu season, dozens of children were diagnosed with acute necrotizing encephalopathy, a condition that causes brain damage and can hamper a child’s development. Of 37 cases nationally, 40% were fatal. Few of the children had received flu shots, which would have lowered their risk of serious illness, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Recently, Whiteley noticed five or six children arrive at the San Jose emergency room with Kawasaki disease, a rare and mysterious condition that causes swelling and can cause heart issues. The children have fevers longer than expected, rashes, and swollen hands and feet, he said. Cases appear when viruses are traveling in the community, Whiteley said.
Whiteley and other doctors urged people to get a flu shot if they haven’t, and for parents to vaccinate their children against the viruses. Flu shots are not among the vaccines California requires for school-age children. Like in much of the country, fewer kids are being vaccinated than before the COVID-19 pandemic. At the Santa Clara Medical Center, physician-in-chief Chaudhary said providers encounter “vaccine hesitancy” and “vaccine fatigue” among parents.
In California, 43% of kids had gotten a flu shot as of early January, according to the latest CDC data. Before the pandemic, in 2018, close to 60% of kids nationally were vaccinated against the flu, said Chin-Hong of UCSF.
“Now, we’re celebrating when 44% of kids get the shot,” he said.
A CDC advisory panel dominated by vaccine skeptics slashed the number of vaccines recommended for kids, to the confusion and outrage of major medical associations. California, under Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, rejected those changes and issued its own recommendations that align with the American Academy of Pediatrics’ guidelines.
One area of agreement: Both state and federal authorities recommend that children and adults get vaccinated against the flu.
“Vaccination should continue throughout the season,” the CDC panel said in online guidance, “as long as influenza viruses are circulating.”
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