Central Coast health officials give early update on flu season

An early snapshot of flu season shows our region is seeing elevated activity from the virus.

The numbers for the region include the Central Coast along with Ventura, Kern, and Los Angeles Counties.

“If numbers are up in any of those counties, that affects our region and that’s what we’re seeing on the influenza surveillance map,” said Rick Rosen of SLO County Public Health.

San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara County Health Department says flu levels are normal in their jurisdictions right now.

“We’ve had five positive so far for flu. The first one came up on October, so not too unusual. The numbers are pretty consistent with past years, ” said Rosen.

But there is something unusual going on, according to public health officials.

“All five were H3N2 flu, which is the same fly strain they saw in Australia,” said Rosen.

Experts say that could be an ominous warning.

“It was a rough flu season in the Southern Hemisphere. They had a relatively high number of deaths from flu in Australia this year. It wasn’t quite as bad as 2017, which was a really bad flu season, but it was close,” said Rosen.

Flu season runs through March and typically peaks from December through February.

Public health officials says the key to avoiding the virus is getting a flu shot.

“It’s the best tool we have. It doesn’t guarantee that you won’t get the flu, but if you do get the flu, generally you’re not as sick as you would otherwise be and in terms of a community and population level, it dramatically decreases the number of hospitalizations, the number of deaths, the number of people who get sick with the flu,” said Rosen.