It’s been a brutal flu season. Rates of hospitalizations and outpatient visits for influenza are at a 15-year high, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The season got off to a typical, relatively late start, but the CDC has now classified it as “high severity.” And as measured by outpatient visits for flulike symptoms, the level of illness in the U.S. has been comparable to that of the 2009 H1N1 (swine flu) pandemic.
Kids have been hit especially hard: as of February 22, 98 children—most of them unvaccinated—have died from flu in the U.S. this season. There has also been an increase in severe neurological complications in kids, including seizures, hallucinations and other symptoms.