{"id":11156,"date":"2026-01-07T16:12:26","date_gmt":"2026-01-07T22:12:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/?p=11156"},"modified":"2026-01-07T16:12:27","modified_gmt":"2026-01-07T22:12:27","slug":"why-flu-seems-to-be-everywhere-even-if-super-flu-is-not-a-thing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/2026\/01\/07\/why-flu-seems-to-be-everywhere-even-if-super-flu-is-not-a-thing\/","title":{"rendered":"Why flu seems to be everywhere \u2014 even if \u2018super flu\u2019 is not a thing"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"panel body-content\"><div class=\"panel__container\">\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.statnews.com\/2026\/01\/06\/flu-season-2026-subclade-k-explained-by-influenza-experts\/\">STAT News<\/a> Subclade K is making its impact felt. Australia\u2019s 2025 flu season&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurosurveillance.org\/content\/10.2807\/1560-7917.ES.2025.30.49.2500894\" target=\"_blank\" aria-label=\"lasted weeks longer, opens in a new window\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">lasted weeks longer<\/a>&nbsp;than it normally does. Hong Kong\u2019s&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.info.gov.hk\/gia\/general\/202601\/03\/P2026010300678.htm\" target=\"_blank\" aria-label=\"hit so early, opens in a new window\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">hit so early<\/a>&nbsp;that the rollout of seasonal flu shots hadn\u2019t yet started. New York has reported&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/health.ny.gov\/press\/releases\/2026\/2026-01-02_flu_hospitalizations.htm\" target=\"_blank\" aria-label=\"record-breaking flu hospitalizations, opens in a new window\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">record-breaking flu hospitalizations<\/a>&nbsp;for the past two weeks.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Welcome to the winter of subclade K.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Even if you weren\u2019t already aware of the name of this year\u2019s flu variant, you may have spent the holidays trying to dodge sick relatives and friends. You\u2019ve likely heard that emergency departments across the country are swamped with patients with flu-like illnesses.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>You may have the impression that this is a particularly early or especially virulent flu season, or that something unusual is afoot. We\u2019ve seen headlines referring to this wave of illness as a \u201csuper flu.\u201d (Except maybe for pandemics \u2014&nbsp;which this isn\u2019t \u2014 that is not a thing.)&nbsp;<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>STAT News Subclade K is making its impact felt. Australia\u2019s 2025 flu season&nbsp;lasted weeks longer&nbsp;than it normally does. Hong Kong\u2019s&nbsp;hit so early&nbsp;that the rollout of seasonal flu shots hadn\u2019t yet started. New York has reported&nbsp;record-breaking flu hospitalizations&nbsp;for the past two weeks.&nbsp; Welcome to the winter of subclade K. Even if you weren\u2019t already aware of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured-headlines","category-influenza"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11156","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11156"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11156\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11157,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11156\/revisions\/11157"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}