Story by Brenda Flanagan, Senior Correspondent (NJ Spotlight)
NEW JERSEY – New Jersey is among a handful of states hit hard early on by a surge of influenza cases, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This particular virus is influenza A — the H3N2 strain — and it’s spreading rapidly across the country, driven by holiday travel.
A CDC map showed New Jersey and New York ranked among at least 20 states with the nation’s highest flu rate. New York set a record with more than 72,000 cases in one week. Montclair State University Epidemiologist Stephanie Silvera calls it a “bad” flu season that’s getting worse here.
“We’re not at the peak yet. I don’t think we’ll be at the peak for another few weeks. And I think that we’re seeing both the number of cases as well as hospitalizations increase,” Silvera explained. “This time last year we were at about 5,500 cases. We’re already at around 12,000. So, we’ve more than doubled from last year. Hospitalizations are up. Last year we were at this time about 127. We’ve already had 553. So we’re seeing more cases as well as a more significant severity.”
“Well, certainly this flu season has been a bad season, and we went through a bad season last year, so that now gives us two in a row, which, which isn’t fun,” agreed Dr. Edward Lifshitz, medical director of the state Department of Health and Senior Services Communicable Disease Service. “It is worse than most. It’s not an emergency, we’re not expecting things to get overrun from it, we’re not talking COVID-19 type catastrophe — but it certainly is bad, an awful lot of people are sick, and unfortunately people are ending up in the hospital and some people are dying.”New flu variant
Lifshitz says, parts of this particular flu strain mutated. But that occurred after drug companies had already prepared this season’s vaccine. The new version of the virus is called subclade K. Dr. David Cennimo, infectious disease specialist at the Rutgers Medical School explains, the vaccine still works, but:
“There’s a partial mismatch with the vaccine,” he added. “So, every year when you make the vaccine, you have to prognosticate which types of flu are gonna be out there. So, this flu vaccine does cover H3N2, but the clade — the K subclade — evolved later, has some mutations, and really isn’t as well-covered as some of the other ones. So, we are seeing an increase in infections.”
“It is still possible that you can get sick even if you had the vaccine,” Lifshitz confirmed. “But if you do get sick, it’s not usually as severe, you almost never end up in the hospital. Death is much less likely and you’re less likely to spread it.”
The CDC reports only about 42% of Americans have received the flu shot this season. In New Jersey, about half of flu cases — some 6,000 so far — have involved children. But it’s mostly people over the age of 65 who have ended up in the hospital with this flu.Flu symptoms
People who’ve been infected can experience symptoms that include a high fever, body aches, overwhelming fatigue and a lingering cough — with the incubation period averaging just two days after exposure.
“And the description is you kind of feel like you got hit by a truck. This is what distinguishes the flu versus a cold or a run of the mill cold,” Silvera says. “Run of the mill cold, you feel kind of worn down, and the symptoms tend to come on slowly. But with the flu, the symptoms come on very fast, and when you lie down, you can’t even conceive of getting back up. And that is really one of the hallmark differences when you know it’s the flu and not just a cold.”Vaccine skepticism
New Jersey requires certain groups to get an annual flu shot by the end of December. They include children aged six months to five years, who attend licensed daycares or preschools. On Monday, the CDC recommended that flu shots — amongst several other vaccines — should be administered to children only after consultation with a health care provider. That revised protocol reinforces a populist shift away from vaccinations, said Burlington County Health Officer Holly Cucuzella.
“There’s been a kind of trend probably over the last 10-15 years in a decline in flu shots that we have seen. I’ve been here at the health department, for well over 20 years. And when I first started here, we were doing over 2,000 shots, a season,” Cucuzella says. “This season, we’re probably on track to do about 1,000. Some of that does have to do with the fact that, flu shots are more available. You know, you used to not be able to go to your local pharmacy or grocery store to get them, and now you can, and so there is a lot more. But there’s also a downward trend in the positive attitudes to immunizations as a whole.”
In a statement, U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. — an avowed vaccine skeptic — said: “After an exhaustive review of the evidence, we are aligning the U.S. childhood vaccine schedule with international consensus while strengthening transparency and informed consent. This decision protects children, respects families, and rebuilds trust in public health.”
Meanwhile, Cucuzella says her department’s sponsoring two free clinics this week, where anyone can get a flu shot. Although some claim that the vaccine gives you the flu, Cucuzella says: “The flu shot is what we call a dead virus. And so, typically people that do get the flu — after getting the flu shot — have already been exposed to the flu. It’s just bad timing, because when you do get the flu shot, it takes about two weeks to become effective to really ramp up that immune system,” she says.
Cennimo emphasized, the flu shot works.
“I had a friend say, ‘Well, if I already got the flu a couple of weeks ago, is the flu shot going to do anything? What’s the point?’” he recalled. “I said, ‘Well, you can get it again. You’re not gonna get the same flu twice. But here’s a fun fact: There’s multiple flus you can get this season. So, yes, you can get sick with influenza, but different influenza a couple of months from now.”
Cennimo says, data from the United Kingdom shows hospitalizations from the K subclade virus have peaked, and are finally trending downwards. That could be promising. But the U.K. flu season is weeks ahead of the U.S.This story was originally published by NJ Spotlight News through the NJ News Commons.
