The Washoe County Health District says its already seen the flu season peak once, but it can happen again.
Health officials say it's never too late to get your flu shot.
"Toward the end of 2019 we kind of had a double peak and then it went back down. Nationally it peaked quite a bit later, our trend line is starting to turn back up," says Director of Epidemiology and Public Health Preparedness, Dr. Randall Todd.
The Washoe County Health District reports that between October of last year to last week, over 125 people have been hospitalized due to influenza-like-illnesses.
In that same report they say three people have died because of the flu, and another death is being investigated to see if it's flu-related.
The CDC recently released a report which looks at influenza-like-illnesses from October of 2019 to January 18th of 2020, across the nation.
The report shows that Nevada, as of January 18th, has a low activity level for the flu, but what does that mean?
"It's looking at how serious the cases are, and so we're looking much better on that chart," says Dr. Todd.
The CDC also reports that although influenza-like-illnesses aren't all resulting in hospitalizations or deaths, that doesn't mean it's not widespread across the state.
"We are widespread here in Nevada, as is most of the nation. There's only two or three states that are showing regional activity, but we are clearly among the widespread," says Dr. Randall.
It's not required to get a flu shot but it's recommended by health officials and others agree.
"It can be very serious. We've already had some people die from influenza this year and we'll probably have more," says Dr. Todd.
"Really the more people who are immunized, the less chance you have of getting it. So I would still encourage everyone to still try to go out. Get their shots and even if it isn't the dominate strain, it'll still protect you against the majority of the flu strains going around this season," says community member, Josh Goldberg.
Click link below for clinics:
https://www.washoecounty.us/health/clinic-and-office-locations.php#clinic
Click link below for CDC report:
