--- title: The Flu Is Bad This Year. Here's Why description: This flu season is no 100-year outbreak. But it’s the most severe flu season since the start of the pandemic. canonical: https://time.com/6248365/flu-influenza-winter-2023-bad-covid-19/ author: Tara Law article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2023-01-19T14:43:46.000Z article:modified_time: 2023-12-11T21:07:46.000Z article:section: Health og:title: It's Not Just You: The Flu Is Bad This Year og:description: This flu season is no 100-year outbreak. But it’s the most severe flu season since the start of the pandemic. og:url: https://time.com/6248365/flu-influenza-winter-2023-bad-covid-19/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltae6ce3e9569ec5e8/698a3998457a5245dfd673a3/Flu-COVID-face-mask.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 6659 og:image:height: 3746 og:image:alt: NYC health officials urge New Yorkers to wear masks as Covid, flu cases rise og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: It's Not Just You: The Flu Is Bad This Year twitter:description: This flu season is no 100-year outbreak. But it’s the most severe flu season since the start of the pandemic. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltae6ce3e9569ec5e8/698a3998457a5245dfd673a3/Flu-COVID-face-mask.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # It's Not Just You: The Flu Is Bad This Year > Sponsored content. 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Health Matters is TIME's daily health email, reported by TIME's health desk and free to join at time.com/newsletters. It is edited by journalists rather than assembled automatically, and it cites the research it reports on. #### Is Health Matters free? Yes. Health Matters is a free daily newsletter from TIME, available at time.com/newsletters. #### Who reads TIME's Health Matters newsletter? Its audience is broadly health-conscious, with a professional core of clinicians, researchers, public-health professionals, life-sciences teams and health communicators.  by [Tara Law](https://time.com/author/tara-law/)  ## Tara Law Updated: Dec 11, 2023 9:07 PM UTCPublished: Jan 19, 2023 2:43 PM UTC  People wear masks after New York City's health officials issued an advisory, strongly urging New Yorkers to use masks as COVID-19, flu, and RSV cases rise, on December 12 in New York, United States. People wear masks after New York City's health officials issued an advisory, strongly urging New Yorkers to use masks as COVID-19, flu, and RSV cases rise, on December 12 in New York, United States.Fatih Aktas/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images  by [Tara Law](https://time.com/author/tara-law/)  ## Tara Law Updated: Dec 11, 2023 9:07 PM UTCPublished: Jan 19, 2023 2:43 PM UTC This winter has brought a cold reminder that SARS-CoV-2 [isn’t the only virus](https://time.com/6211865/flu-season-2022-covid-19/) we need to think about. After two winters during which influenza was subdued by pandemic precautions, the last few months have shown that the flu is still a major public health threat that can overwhelm busy hospitals and cost thousands of lives. This flu season is no 100-year outbreak. But it’s the most severe flu season since the start of the pandemic. “It looks very similar to some of the worst seasons in the past 10 years,” says John Huddleston, a staff scientist in the Bedford Lab at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, where he tracks the evolution of influenza viruses. Huddleston compares the 2022-2023 flu season to one of the worst flu seasons over the last decade: 2014-2015\. During the peak of[ that season](https://gis.cdc.gov/GRASP/Fluview/FluHospRates.html), the rate of hospitalization reached 9 per 100,000 people, while in this season, the highest mark so far has been 8.7, during the week that ended Dec. 3\. By comparison, during the peak of the flu season last year, the rate was only 1.2 per 100,000 people. It’s too soon to tell for certain, but the current flu season may also have a similar death toll to the [other most severe years](https://time.com/5179131/the-flu-vaccine-worst-year/) of the last decade. As of Jan. 13, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has[ estimated](https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/preliminary-in-season-estimates.htm) that between 16,000 and 48,000 flu people have already died from the flu this season; the final tally[ could approach or surpass](https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/index.html) the 52,000 deaths in the 2017-2018 season, or the 51,000 counted during 2014-2015. Even though this winter is comparable to other recent severe flu seasons, this one has been particularly challenging for health care workers, says Dr. Panagis Galiatsatos a pulmonary and critical care medicine physician at Johns Hopkins Medicine in Baltimore, Md. That’s because the U.S health workforce is still coping with burnout and understaffing worsened by the pandemic. “The biggest difference that makes this year seem horrible, is that healthcare systems are probably just running on fumes. COVID has burnt us out,” says Galiatsatos. “We’re just so beaten, we’re just so tired.” Even if you’re not a health care worker, the current flu season may seem particularly severe, and to be infecting more people you know than usual. In part, that is because this flu season began[ unusually early](https://www.cdc.gov/flu/spotlights/2022-2023/early-wave-hospitalizations.htm)—but on the positive side, it may have also peaked earlier. While flu seasons[ often peak](https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/season/flu-season.htm) in January or February, researchers believe this one peaked in December. One reason it hit so fast in late 2022,[ according to the CDC,](https://www.cdc.gov/flu/spotlights/2022-2023/early-wave-hospitalizations.htm) is because [fewer people contracted the flu](https://time.com/6224268/severe-flu-season-rsv/) during the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic, leaving them more likely to get the virus now. Huddleston agrees: “It’s just an increased pool of people that are susceptible to infection.” This altered timeline may also have affected the public’s preparations for the flu. Galiatsatos says one reason that this year has been so bad is that some people may have gotten flu while [waiting to get the flu vaccine](https://time.com/5386037/flu-shot-october-2018/), as they didn’t expect the outbreak to hit so early. This, in turn, may have been the reason flu-related hospitalization spiking in October—usually, that doesn’t happen until November. Annual [vaccination](https://time.com/6213110/mrna-flu-shot-2022/) is the best way to increase your immunity to season flu, but this year only 40% of U.S. adults got the shots between Oct. 30 and Nov. 26., according to [CDC data](https://www.cdc.gov/flu/fluvaxview/dashboard/vaccination-adult-coverage.html). Further, the fact that “we’ve been a little spoiled without a bad flu season for a few years,” says Galiasatos, means population-wide immunity was likely down in late 2022 compared to previous flu seasons. For now, the flu is declining in most of the U.S., according to the CDC’s Jan. 13 Weekly U.S. Influenza Surveillance[ Report](https://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/index.htm#FluSurvNet). However, “the big unknown,” says Huddleston, is whether the early start of the flu season could mean there’s a chance for a second peak, which has occurred in some flu seasons, including in 2018-2019. **Correction, Jan. 20** _The original version of this story misstated the name of John Huddleston’s workplace. 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