Flu season finally appears to be on its way out as cases begin to drop in New York, but it’s been a particularly nasty season and it’s unclear when exactly it will end.
New York is not alone. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention categorized the 2024-25 season as the first “high-severity” flu season in seven years.
During the week ending March 1, New York labs ran more than 50,000 flu tests and 44% came back positive, a 25% decrease from the previous week, according to state Department of Health data. During the same week, 1,442 patients were also hospitalized for the flu, which represented a 23% drop from the previous week.
But the share of flu tests coming back positive at the beginning of March was still higher than at the same time last year, and the number of cases and hospitalizations has been up this season overall, according to the state data.
“The funny thing about flu is that it's different every year,” said Stephen Morse, an epidemiologist at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health. “ Usually, it does correspond to holidays and travel, but then sometimes we'll see the flu come up in a peak, go down, and then there'll be another, usually smaller peak.”
Morse noted that the flu has rebounded after cases dropped off during the early years of the COVID-19 pandemic because people are no longer taking strict precautions around masking and social distancing.
New York’s flu season started in mid-October this year and peaked at the end of January, with 54,737 cases in one week. The 2022-2023 flu season’s November peak came close to that figure, but state data shows cases dropped off more quickly than they have this time around.
Some public health experts say the current strains that are circulating may be to blame for the severity of this year's flu season, since they tend to spread more quickly and cause more severe symptoms than strains in prior years.
Dr. Ravi Saksena, a pediatrician at South Slope Pediatrics, said at the height of this year’s flu season in January, “ we were surprised when [patients] weren't positive.”
He said the most important precaution to take to prevent infection is getting a flu shot at the beginning of the season. Although flu vaccines are not 100% effective, “ the shot really helps make sure that the illness is not as prolonged and not as bad,” Saksena said.
This year’s flu vaccines were 32% to 60% effective at preventing people under 18 from getting the flu and 63% to 78% effective at preventing hospitalization, according to data from the CDC. But only about 27% of New Yorkers got their flu shots this year.
Saksena said the range of symptoms associated with the flu can vary depending on which strain a patient catches. Symptoms typically include fever, fatigue, body aches, runny nose and sore throat, but can also come with problems such as nausea or vomiting.
Antiviral medications for flu are optional, Saksena said. The CDC says they can be beneficial for those who are more vulnerable, including children under 2, adults over 65 and patients with asthma.
