{"id":11223,"date":"2026-01-14T18:35:40","date_gmt":"2026-01-15T00:35:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/?p=11223"},"modified":"2026-01-14T18:35:44","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T00:35:44","slug":"colorado-an-emergency-room-physician-describes-why-the-2025-26-flu-season-is-hitting-hard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/2026\/01\/14\/colorado-an-emergency-room-physician-describes-why-the-2025-26-flu-season-is-hitting-hard\/","title":{"rendered":"Colorado: An emergency room physician describes why the\u00a02025-26\u00a0flu season is hitting\u00a0hard"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"panel body-content\"><div class=\"panel__container\">\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/colorado-ranks-among-the-highest-states-in-the-country-for-flu-an-emergency-room-physician-describes-why-the-2025-26-flu-season-is-hitting-hard-273069\">The Conversation<\/a> Colorado is in the midst of a record-breaking flu season. In the week ending Dec. 27, 2025,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/cdphe.colorado.gov\/viral-respiratory-diseases-report\">831 people were hospitalized<\/a>&nbsp;with influenza \u2013 the most since the state started&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3201\/eid1506.081645\">tracking flu cases two decades ago<\/a>. Hospitalizations eased the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/cdphe.colorado.gov\/viral-respiratory-diseases-report\">following week to 737<\/a>&nbsp;but still remain higher than prior years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Colorado is among the top five states with&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cdc.gov\/fluview\/surveillance\/usmap.html\">the most flu activity in the country<\/a>, with&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.scientificamerican.com\/article\/doctor-visits-for-flu-hit-highest-level-in-almost-30-years\/\">doctor\u2019s visits for flu-like illness at a 30-year record high<\/a>, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention\u2019s&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cdc.gov\/fluview\/surveillance\/usmap.html\">weekly influenza surveillance report<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I\u2019m an&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/som.cuanschutz.edu\/Profiles\/Faculty\/Profile\/24314\">emergency medicine and critical care physician<\/a>&nbsp;at the University of Colorado. In my 18 years of practicing clinical medicine, this year is one of the worst I have seen. Our emergency department hit a record number of single-day total visits over the holidays, and visit volumes have stayed high. Flu is likely contributing to this trend.<\/p>\n<a rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"\/secure-location.php\" style=\"display: none;\" title=\"SEPH gpzmiYqO S \"><\/a><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Conversation Colorado is in the midst of a record-breaking flu season. In the week ending Dec. 27, 2025,&nbsp;831 people were hospitalized&nbsp;with influenza \u2013 the most since the state started&nbsp;tracking flu cases two decades ago. Hospitalizations eased the&nbsp;following week to 737&nbsp;but still remain higher than prior years. Colorado is among the top five states with&nbsp;the [&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":[42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11223","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","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\/11223","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=11223"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11223\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11224,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11223\/revisions\/11224"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}