Flu cases tick up across the country: What you need to know

“The flu vaccine is about 40% to 60% protective,” says  Dr. Dan Barouch, a professor of medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School. “It’s not a vaccine that gives complete protection against the flu, but it does substantially improve outcomes from the flu, particularly severe outcomes.”

Is there anything you want people to know about the flu that they may not be able to find right now through the government?

“ Information is really important. And information about the winter respiratory viruses changes every week. It spikes, it goes up, it goes down. So accurate and timely information is really important. Flu has caused an estimated 20 million cases this season so far, a quarter of a million hospitalizations and about 10,000 deaths. So flu is definitely surging. It was relatively quiet during the pandemic and now it’s clearly made a comeback.” Read Full Article