Flu season is nobody’s favorite time of year. The prospect of sniffling and sneezing throughout the cold months is enough to make some people wish they could hibernate. Since human beings can’t do that, they need to get flu shots instead. According to a 2018 study by the CDC, getting a flu shot reduced the chances of an adult being sent to the ICU by a whopping 82 percent.
While people can get the flu anytime, flu season is defined as those months when most people get the flu. Doctors typically start seeing an increase in flu cases around October and November and a tapering off in May. Not surprisingly, flu season peaks during the winter months of December and January, and this peak can last until March.
The flu can cause complications like pneumonia, sinus infections, and ear infections. It can also worsen chronic conditions like diabetes, asthma, or congestive heart failure. People with such conditions are most susceptible to the complications of flu, as are children under five and adults over 65.
Why does flu season peak in winter?
The flu is caused by the influenza virus which lives longer in cold and dry air than in hot or moist air. Winter thus gives it more chances to infect people. To make matters worse, people spend more time indoors in close proximity with each other – and that makes it easier for the very contagious virus to spread.
Flu vaccines generally start becoming available around August or September; the idea is to have people inoculated before flu season starts. The CDC recommends that anybody who is at least six months old and able to get vaccinated should the shot toward the end of October, as it takes time for the shot to actually become effective. The vaccine works by triggering the development of antibodies that will protect the body from the flu, and it takes two to four weeks for those antibodies to develop.
The flu shot will protect the recipient for at least six months, and it will be at its most potent for the first three months. Unfortunately, flu shots will only protect a person against that year’s flu. There are many different strains of flu, and doctors formulate the flu shot based on the most prevalent strains of that year.
