After a surge of Influenza just after Christmas, flu numbers have chilled out in Central Florida. Meanwhile, flu vaccination numbers continue to drop nationally.
The weekly cumulative doses of flu vaccines dropped this week by 9% compared to last year. At 132 million doses distributed this week, it's the lowest weekly total in six years, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. During the 2019-2020 season, 172 million doses were distributed.
"The number one best thing to prevent the flu is the flu shot. It is effective," said Dr. Timothy Hendrix the chief medical officer at AdventHealth Centra Care.
During the last week of the year, AdventHealth reported 1,500 emergency department visits due to flu activity – a 20% increase over cases during that same time period last year.
Hendrix said the urgent care nearly reached record numbers with 2,000 patient visits in the week after Christmas, but the season has since calmed down with cases dropping just below 1,000.
"I thought this was going to be a really severe season," Hendrix said, "but I've been really surprised at the softening of the flu activity I've seen in the last week or two. I'm hoping it holds like this, but you never know."
Flu season stretches until around April, but the peak of flu activity isn't typically seen until February, meaning numbers are expected to go up again.
"It always seems to be worse the week of Valentine's Day, for some reason, but that coincides with peak activity, pretty much on average. So does that mean we're still going to see more cases? Who knows? It's very hard to predict," Hendrix said.
Despite a widespread apprehension toward getting the vaccine, Hendrix remains resolute about getting the vaccine, even this far into the season, and even with a subvariant that wasn't included in this formulation.
In 2025, a variant strain of the flu known as "subclade K," a particularly severe strain, was found to be the most common flu infection, according to CDC September data. This year's vaccines did not include subclade K.
"But your vaccine is still effective," Hendrix said. "The vaccine is not perfect, but it does prevent hospitalization and prevent you from getting worse."
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