Flu Season Severity for 2020

The flu season is known by people worldwide especially in the United States for being the most prevalent time for disease and sickness. The flu this year has recently been back on the rise with at least 22 million cases this season. This is quite shocking that there has been that many cases I did not realize how easily spread the disease was. The articles says type A flu has been seen with older adults while type B has been more common with children. The articles states that the vaccine covers both type A and B which is H1N1 and H3N2 respectively. I did not realize before doing this research that the vaccine could cover two different ones and not just one type. The vaccine being able to cover two different strains is very good because it gives you a better shot to be protected against the flu.

The flu this season has been relatively normal with the mortality rate for it and pneumonia only being at 7.1 percent which is below the epidemic rate of 7.2 percent. The first article said that there was a total of 12,000 deaths as of two days ago with 78 of them being children. It blows my mind that there could be that many people that die from flu or secondary infections such as pneumonia and the season is still not over. The second article from the CDC showed that almost all of the fifty states were experiencing high percentages of visits to outpatient clinics compared to normal. One of the high percentage states was North Carolina which means that we should be extra cautious about being cleanly.

The CDC article stated that the full report for how accurate the flu vaccine was for the season will be available later in February. The flu vaccine as of recent years has been about forty to fifty percent effective for the population. The flu vaccine according to the CDC article seems to be a pretty good match to the viruses that are circulating. This is good that they are a match so that more people especially children or older adults will have protection against the flu. The CDC article also states that almost all of the viruses that have been found this year have been susceptible to the four antiviral flu medications. The vaccine should definitely be everyone first line of defense though followed by antiviral medication.