The Flu Is On A Rampage!

The Flu has started its devastating spree, earlier this year than in the past. In fact in the week of December 20th, nearly 7% of the deaths were blamed on pneumonia and the Flu. This percentage has been higher than last years at the same time, but this is just a small problem compared to the larger one. The bigger problem is the percentage of deaths usually rises as we move further into the Flu season,  which may cause this year to have more deaths than the past few years.

Looking at past Flu seasons, the deaths have been dropping from the spike in the 2012-2013 season when 171 child deaths were blamed on the Flu. In the 2013-2014 season, this number dropped down to 109 deaths, according to the CDC. (Totals are only know for children deaths, because it is required that all child deaths have to be reported to the CDC unlike adult deaths.)

While it is too early to say if this outbreak will be worse than last years the CDC has released a map outlining Flu activity in the U.S. and Puerto Rico, which shows most states have a high activity rating.

Even if you have received the vaccination, there is no guarantee that you won’t catch the Flu this year. According to recent reports, there is a mutated strain of the Flu that wasn’t being spread during the creation of the vaccine. So help reduce the duration of the Flu by checking out these 3 steps to help prevent The Flu.