Health officials are concerned Louisiana could see a second peak in the flu season sometime in late January/early February as cases continue to climb.
Office of Public Health Assistant Secretary Dr. Alex Billioux says if we do get hit with another peak, it’ll likely be because a new strain of flu is beginning to pick up steam in Louisiana.
“We’re seeing a lot more of what I call Flu A, whereas before we were seeing a lot more of what we called Flu B, so it may be that we are in fact seeing a real, second peak,” says Billioux.
Whether we ever even left the first peak that began in late fall of 2019 is unknown, due to a lack of data resulting from a ransomware attack on state computers.
Flu A is more adaptive and mutates more frequently than Flu B, but science aside Billioux says the most important thing is for most folks to know is you still need a vaccine.
“For the average person what we need to be most concerned about is it can make me just as sick, and if I had Flu B earlier in the season I can still get Flu A,” says Billioux.
The CDC estimates 6.4 to 9.1 million people have gotten sick with the flu this year, resulting in 2,900 to 7,200 deaths.
Billioux says we still have a long ways to go in this flu season, which is shaping up to be abnormally long, and highly active.
“The flu season really hit Louisiana first in the country, so we had a really early flu season, and that is why at the point where we would even be talking about the first peak we are even talking about a second peak,” says Billioux.
