Chicagoans are likely grabbing gloves, hats and lip balm as winter takes root in Chicago.
But you may want to add hand sanitizer, a mask and vitamin C to your list of essentials as health officials are expecting flu season to be longer and worse than usual this year.
“It’s looking to be a pretty rough one,” said Dr. Emily Landon, the University of Chicago’s top infectious disease expert.
There are several reasons why. One is that the US, in the northern hemisphere, typically crafts its flu vaccine using strains that are common in the south hemisphere, since that region’s winters take place during our summers.
“We often sort of use what happens in the southern hemisphere to give us an idea about what’s going to be happening in our flu season the next year,” Landon explained, adding that vaccines, this year, were modeled after flu strains at the beginning of the southern hemisphere’s season.
But the virus had a “pretty significant antigenic drift” throughout the southern hemisphere’s winter, meaning it changed throughout the season to evade immunity.
“So we’re facing down a flu virus that is different from what we have in our flu vaccine,” Landon said.
On top of the lower effectiveness of the flu vaccine, Landon said the flu strains that are circulating this year are less common — not seen as much in year’s past — so there is less natural immunity among Chicagoans.
Landon said the Chicago area is already starting to see more influenza hospitalizations than normal for this early in the season. But just because flu infections are starting early, doesn’t mean the flu season will end sooner — making for a long window of infections overall.
Landon said that masking up in public spaces, using hand sanitizer if you can’t wash your hands, and washing your hands regularly are the best ways to avoid getting sick — on top of getting vaccinated. She added that those prevention measures are even more crucial if you’re flying.
“This is where things like cleaning off that tray table with a disinfectant wipe that they hand you when you walk on the plane is wise and smart,” Landon said. “I would also clean off my seat belt buckle and the little arm rests, and you definitely want to be keeping your hands clean, I would recommend everyone have hand sanitizer around and use it frequently.
“You really don’t want to get flu or covid, especially in that really busy time period between Thanksgiving and Christmas,” she said.
As for COVID-19, Landon said officials are still watching to see how the virus will spread this season.
“We’re seeing some cases of COVID, although not very many. That’s not surprising to me,” Landon said. “COVID is still not settled into a really predictable season.”
“We’re just not seeing this winter wave of COVID… It hasn’t started yet, but I wouldn’t expect it to until after the holiday travel season”