Flu Season: How did this become winter’s ’enemy #1’

What do we learn from this?

Now the mainstream media is finally catching up. Recently, Fox News published a piece about the rise of the subclade K variant:

 

Flu season is among us, and a new strain has emerged as a major threat.
A mutation of influenza A H3N2, called subclade K, has been detected as the culprit in rising global cases, including in the U.S…

In an interview with Fox News Digital, Dr. Neil Maniar, professor of public health practice at Boston’s Northeastern University, shared details on the early severity of this emerging strain.

"It’s becoming evident that this is a pretty severe variant of the flu," he said. "Certainly in other parts of the world where this variant has been prevalent, it's caused some severe illness, and we're seeing an aggressive flu season already."

 

A “PERFECT STORM” FOR A DANGEROUS FLU SEASON

 

Experts are referring to this new dangerous variant as the “perfect storm” for a dangerous flu season for two important reasons.

 

First, this mutation is more severe than other flu strains:

 

The variant seems to differ from prior strains of the flu, with heightened versions of typical symptoms like fever, chills, headache, fatigue, cough, sore throat and runny nose.

 

Second, not only is this mutation more severe and virulent, the so-called “flu vaccine” is even less effective than usual against it.

 

And the sad truth is that even in the best years, the flu vaccine doesn’t work.
Last year’s “flu vaccine” was only 36% effective. Even worse, for some high-risk groups like the elderly, the effective rate was even LOWER than 36%.

 

Experts expect this year’s flu vaccine to be even LESS effective because of this new strand of the flu:

 

Public officials warn of a mismatch between the variant and the most recent flu vaccines — meaning vaccinated individuals may be protected from other variants but still vulnerable to subclade K.

As STAT News points out, vaccine manufacturers rely on guidance from the World Health Organization to know what flu variants their vaccines should target — but in cases such as what’s happening now — what variant reigns dominant may not peak until after vaccines are formulated.

This gap leaves vaccine manufacturers targeting variants that aren’t the biggest threat in a given season.

As the saying goes, “ Your Immune System is Your Best Defense”