Pediatric flu cases spike earlier in North Texas this year

The flu season started early this year, with some of the first flu deaths being reported in states across the country. Flu activity remains fairly low in Texas right now, but cases are expected to rise. Fox 4's Sean Rabb joins us with more. Hi, Sean. Yeah, and so the experts said they can't tell if this means it's going to be a real severe flu season or not, only that it's starting earlier, adults and children getting the virus. Chastity Hill's two-year-old son go through one of those early cases. When he was tested, he turned up positive for COVID, strep, and flu. I honestly would have not known he was sick if I didn't bring him in because he had a fever of 100.8 and he had little, you know, green boogers. And I was like, you know, maybe with the weather change and everything, I thought it was just going to be a sinus infection. Children's Health Dallas say it's seeing a clear increase in flu activity. Zachary Most is an infectious disease specialist and associate professor at UT Southwestern. In just the past week, we're seeing 36% more cases than we had the week before. And more than one out of every 10 children we've tested for the flu in the last week has tested positive. And so these are clear signs that there's flu circulating in our community. It's certainly not at peak, but we are Seeing some increases in multiple different data sources, some of the emergency department visits, some of the percent positive testing, wastewater sampling, all of those show increases in the flu activity in Dallas County. Dallas County Health and Human Services Director Dr. Philip Wong says good hygiene along with vaccinations can stop the flu spread. strongly recommend everyone get it also you know um the other things that we say every season stay home if you're sick wash your hands uh cover your cough don't touch your eyes nose and mouth with your hands things like that to try to prevent further spread of infection while there's already been some pediatric flu hospitalizations at Children's Health Dallas there is not yet a large increase in hospitalizations i would recommend flu vaccine for anybody who's eligible to get the flu vaccine, including children when they're getting their first flu vaccine often need to get two in the same season, about a month apart. And so with our rise in flu activity, right now is the best time to get your flu vaccine. I wouldn't wait any longer. Chastity Hill planned flu shots for two-year-old Golden, but he got sick before they got the shot. Now you've had to, I guess, miss work this week? I have, and I've been very fortunate enough that I do have some PTO, where I'm not stressing out on that part. But I know for a lot of other families, that may not be true, and I really do feel for them. Yeah, because if you have to take care of a sick child, then you're going to have to miss work four or five days, maybe. Now, how much earlier is the flu hitting? Well, the experts say about four to six weeks earlier than normal, this kind of rise in number of cases. They say get the flu shot now because it takes a couple of weeks, about 14 days, for your immune system to build up antibodies once you take that shot. Good information, Sean. Thank you.