Prep For Flu Season Now!

It’s almost that time of year. Follow our expert advice to boost your immunity—and get a better shot (so to speak) at not getting sick.

- Camille Noe Pagan

WORRIED ABOUT

catching the flu? We don’t blame you—last year’s flu season was a whopper. It’s impossible to tell exactly how many people got sick, but it’s estimated that some 30,000 Americans landed in the hospital with influenza, and at one point, the virus claimed more than 1,600 lives in a single week. What the heck?

“The severity of the outbreak last year was particularly high,” explains Stephen Baum, MD, a professor of medicine and of microbiology & immunology at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City. Last year, the most prevalent strain of the virus, H3N2, spread quickly and caused severe symptoms, which may explain why so many people were hospitalized.

Another factor: Flu vaccines are created before flu season actually begins in the United States, based on flu activity in Australia and South America (where the season starts six months earlier). Like any flu strain, H3N2 can mutate, and last year it did. As a result, the vaccine wasn’t the best match. That may be part of the reason it was only about 40 percent effective.

All of this is to say: The flu’s no joke. But thankfully, experts agree that there are plenty of things you can do to ward off the virus and stay healthy. And, of course, we asked them to share every single one of them!

GET TO KNOW THE DIFFERENT FLU TYPES

There are actually four types of flu viruses. These are the three that affect people.