{"id":5103,"date":"2023-11-01T06:51:00","date_gmt":"2023-11-01T11:51:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/?p=5103"},"modified":"2023-11-01T09:12:40","modified_gmt":"2023-11-01T14:12:40","slug":"the-early-verdict-on-flu-season-is-here-what-to-expect","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/2023\/11\/01\/the-early-verdict-on-flu-season-is-here-what-to-expect\/","title":{"rendered":"The Early Verdict on Flu Season Is Here. What to Expect."},"content":{"rendered":"
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WSJ<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s some good news about flu season<\/a> this year. Doctors and scientists don\u2019t expect the worst. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The flu season in the Southern Hemisphere, where the cold-weather illness period wraps up as we head into ours, often serves as a harbinger of what\u2019s to come for us. There, cases picked up a little earlier than usual in some countries but didn\u2019t result in an especially large number of hospitalizations and deaths, say public health experts and doctors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also encouraging: The components in this year\u2019s flu vaccine<\/a> are a good match to the predominant strain so far. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

One study<\/a> found that the current version of the flu vaccine reduced the risk for flu-related hospitalizations by 52% in the Southern Hemisphere, a pretty strong indicator of effectiveness, says Alicia Budd, head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention\u2019s domestic influenza surveillance team. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s impossible to predict the overall outlook for respiratory illnesses this winter, but a mild flu season would be a welcome breather after last year\u2019s \u201ctripledemic\u201d of flu, Covid-19 and RSV<\/a> hit hard. Many employers are less forgiving about working from home<\/a>, taking away some flexibility that workers had when they got sick or their family members got sick. And families are preparing to gather for Thanksgiving and other holidays soon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The flu vaccine protects against four varieties of flu, two which are known as \u201ctype A\u201d viruses and two \u201ctype B\u201d viruses. <\/strong>Type A viruses typically produce more serious illness, particularly one known as H3N2, but type B viruses can hit children hard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The predominant strain in the Southern Hemisphere this year was a type A virus known as H1N1. Some countries like South Africa also had significant levels of H3N2.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Continue reading<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WSJ There\u2019s some good news about flu season this year. Doctors and scientists don\u2019t expect the worst.  The flu season in the Southern Hemisphere, where the cold-weather illness period wraps up as we head into ours, often serves as a harbinger of what\u2019s to come for us. There, cases picked up a little earlier than usual in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":5104,"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],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5103","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured-headlines"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/Screenshot-2023-11-01-at-07.50.28.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5103","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=5103"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5103\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5105,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5103\/revisions\/5105"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5104"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}