US Doctors Urge Flu Shots as West Coast Positivity Hits 10.7%

2 articles · Updated · Reuters · Oct 20

West Coast flu positivity reached 10.7% last week, up from 0.5% a year earlier, prompting doctors to press vaccination for everyone 6 months and older as the US season starts unusually early.
H1N1 is the dominant strain, and scientists say a new G155E mutation may leave younger people with weaker residual protection from prior infection or vaccination, though experts say the findings are not cause for alarm.
This season's FDA-approved vaccine targets H1N1, H3N2 and one influenza B strain; researchers say two of the three components appear well matched, and flu shots have cut hospitalizations and deaths by 30% to 60% over the past decade.
Vaccination uptake has fallen sharply, with 58 million US adults getting a flu shot last season versus nearly 75 million in 2019-20, while about half of children were vaccinated compared with more than 60% before the pandemic.
Doctors and public-health experts say weaker federal promotion under Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. may be hurting uptake as flu activity rises from the West rather than the South and positive tests hit a 10-year high for this point in the season.