Flu deaths up in California amid concern over vaccine

The flu has gotten off to an early and fatal start in the Bay Area and the rest of California, though whether this season will go down as more severe or longer lasting than usual remains to be seen, public health and infectious disease experts said.

As of Dec. 16, the date of the most recent report from the California Department of Public Health, 10 people under age 65 had died from influenza-related illness statewide. Typically, only one or two deaths, and sometimes none at all, have been reported in the same time frame. The state does not track flu-related deaths among people age 65 and older.

The higher-than-usual number of fatalities — plus other reports of increased influenza activity — does not necessarily mean this flu season will be worse, experts said. It’s possible the season is starting ahead of schedule, but otherwise will be normal.

“The flu season usually lasts about 12 weeks. Whether this will be a typical 12-week season or it will be a longer cycle — well, it kind of looks like it’s following the usual curve,” said Dr. Shelley Gordon, an infectious disease specialist with California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco.

What has some experts concerned, though, are reports that this year’s flu vaccine is not offering good protection against the strain that’s circulating most widely: Type A, subtype H3N2.

H3N2 “tends to be the strain of virus that most impacts the elderly, that causes the most complications, and up until this point the vaccine results have been quite disappointing,” said Dr. Randy Bergen, clinical lead for Kaiser Permanente’s flu vaccination program in Northern California. “Those things make us concerned that we’re going to have a lot of sick people.”