Anonymous21 days ago
CDC data shows the 2024-2025 flu vaccines were among the least effective in more than a decade, with adult protection against outpatient illness as low as 25-36% due to a mismatch between the vaccine and a dominant H3N2 strain. The high-severity season produced an estimated 51 million illnesses, 710,000 hospitalizations, and 45,000 deaths — the worst since 2017-2018 — while falling vaccination rates and a contentious policy shift removing flu shots from the routine childhood immunization schedule raise concerns about the nation's preparedness for the ongoing 2025-2026 season, which faces a similar mismatch with the drifted subclade K variant.