{"id":11274,"date":"2026-01-21T18:50:28","date_gmt":"2026-01-22T00:50:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/?p=11274"},"modified":"2026-01-21T18:50:30","modified_gmt":"2026-01-22T00:50:30","slug":"new-variant-of-the-flu-virus-is-driving-surge-of-cases-across-the-us-and-canada","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/2026\/01\/21\/new-variant-of-the-flu-virus-is-driving-surge-of-cases-across-the-us-and-canada\/","title":{"rendered":"New variant of the flu virus is driving surge of cases across the US and\u00a0Canada"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"panel body-content\"><div class=\"panel__container\">\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/new-variant-of-the-flu-virus-is-driving-surge-of-cases-across-the-us-and-canada-273556\">The Conversation<\/a> After a sharp&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cdc.gov\/fluview\/surveillance\/2025-week-50.html\">uptick in flu cases in mid-December 2025<\/a>, flu activity across the U.S. and Canada remains high.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Although cases are&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/health-infobase.canada.ca\/respiratory-virus-surveillance\/influenza.html\">trending downward in Canada<\/a>&nbsp;as of Jan. 9, 2026,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cdc.gov\/fluview\/surveillance\/2025-week-53.html\">the season has yet to peak in the U.S.<\/a>, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As an&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/physicians.umassmemorial.org\/details\/4677\/zachary-binder-emergency_medicine-pediatric_specialty_services-pediatrics_-_general_pediatrics-worcester\">emergency room pediatrician<\/a>&nbsp;in central Massachusetts, I\u2019m seeing a tremendous amount of flu over the past few weeks. I\u2019m hearing from colleagues in emergency rooms across the country that they are experiencing a&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.today.com\/health\/cold-flu\/new-flu-strain-2025-symptoms-rcna243681\">similar explosion of flu cases<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In early January, New York state recorded the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.health.ny.gov\/press\/releases\/2026\/2026-01-02_flu_hospitalizations.htm\">highest number of flu cases in a single week<\/a>&nbsp;on record. Several other states,&nbsp;<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\">such as Colorado<\/a>, are also experiencing record flu levels, and&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cdc.gov\/fluview\/surveillance\/2025-week-53.html\">44 out of 55 states and other jurisdictions<\/a>&nbsp;are reporting high or very high flu activity, according to the CDC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The spike in flu cases \u2013 widely referred to in&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.gavi.org\/vaccineswork\/superflu-or-same-old-flu-how-subclade-k-influenza-playing-out-worldwide\">media reports as a \u201csuperflu\u201d<\/a>&nbsp;\u2013 is largely driven by a newly identified subtype of the virus called subclade K.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Conversation After a sharp&nbsp;uptick in flu cases in mid-December 2025, flu activity across the U.S. and Canada remains high. Although cases are&nbsp;trending downward in Canada&nbsp;as of Jan. 9, 2026,&nbsp;the season has yet to peak in the U.S., according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. As an&nbsp;emergency room pediatrician&nbsp;in central Massachusetts, [&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-11274","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\/11274","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=11274"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11274\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11275,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11274\/revisions\/11275"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11274"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11274"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11274"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}