Dr. Mary Fairchok was surprised when, almost a month ago, a young boy was admitted to Mary Bridge Children’s Hospital with the flu. It was unusual to see a child so sick with influenza in early September, she thought to herself.
But since then, more have followed.
In late September and early October, flu-related emergency department visits and positive tests have spiked at the MultiCare pediatric hospital in Tacoma, as well as throughout the Puget Sound area — hitting levels doctors say are more common for December or January. Other West Coast states have also reported an early start to flu season this year, though infectious disease experts say it’s too soon to know what’s behind the change or what it could mean for overall spread.
“It’s definitely here,” Fairchok said of influenza season, especially among teenagers and kids. “We usually tend to have a little bit of a later season in the Pacific Northwest, compared to the East Coast, South and the Southeast. But this year, we're establishing the flu season.”
In King County, rates of flu emergency department visits were far higher during the last week of September, compared to that time in any other year since at least 2018, per the public health department’s respiratory virus data. Typically, King County emergency rooms see fewer than 50 flu patients a week around this time of year, but during the first week of October, hospitals saw more than 400 — making up about 2.5% of total emergency visits.
Since late September, nine King County residents have died from flu complications.
Emergency flu visits also appear to be ticking up statewide, but as of Friday, the state Department of Health had not updated its weekly influenza update in a month.
At Seattle Children’s, among younger patients, rates of emergency visits and positive tests are even higher.
About 6% of Children’s emergency department patients were sick with the flu as of early October, said Dr. Erin Chung, a pediatric infectious disease attending physician at Children’s. At that time last year, it was 0%.
In addition, about 20% of Children's tests for influenza A, the predominant flu strain circulating now, were returning positive as of early October, up from less than 2% in August, according to respiratory virus data collected by UW Medicine.
“This is kind of an unprecedented early season,” said Chung, who's also Children's associate medical director of infection prevention. “So, we've had to scramble a bit to get patient vaccines available sooner.”
Providence Swedish has seen a 330% increase in positive flu tests in the emergency department and outpatient clinics, compared with this time last year, said Dr. Andrew Young, the hospital system’s medical director of emergency medicine. The jump is even sharper among adults 50 and over, Young said.
Because flu vaccines can take up to two weeks to kick in and provide the most protection, several Seattle area doctors and public health experts recommended people get their shot now if they haven’t already.
“Don't get a false sense of security that because your child is healthy and does not have any underlying health conditions that they will not get terribly ill from the flu,” Fairchok said.
She added, “Every year, we have pediatric deaths in the United States, and they are not all in kids who have underlying health conditions or who are very young.”
While young and healthy people may recover quickly, there are many, including children, older adults, pregnant people and those with underlying medical conditions, who are also more likely to develop serious symptoms from the flu, reminded Elysia Gonzales, medical epidemiologist at Public Health – Seattle & King County.
In addition to the flu, some hospitals, like Providence Swedish, are also tracking a rise in COVID-19 patients, too. While COVID rates seem to have fallen among younger children over the last few weeks, the virus continues to circulate among the broader community, especially older adults.
As of last week, King County counted 12 ongoing COVID outbreaks at long-term care facilities, including one at Valley View, a skilled nursing and rehabilitation center in Renton, that sickened at least 22 people.
“Not only do these residents have a harder time recovering from respiratory virus infections, but their immune systems are also less able to prevent infection compared to healthy adults,” Gonzalez wrote in a statement.
Fortunately, doctors said, flu patients haven’t necessarily appeared sicker than they have in past years, so far. But the severity of cases could change over the next few months, especially as more people likely become infected.
“The concerning thing would be if the trend continues, that an older population is affected more,” said Young, at Swedish. “Although it’s not bearing out yet, the concern would be if it tilts that way, then we’d potentially have a (more deadly) season.”
Still, it’s hard to know the impact of the early bump in cases on fall and winter months.
“It doesn't necessarily mean it's going to be worse than usual, but it certainly isn’t reassuring,” said Dr. John Pauk, Providence Swedish’s medical director of infectious diseases. “And it makes you a little more concerned that we could have a more prolonged flu season.”
In the meantime, medical providers hope people will remember, and heed, evergreen public health precautions to limit virus spread, reduce severity of illness and protect people who are at higher-risk or who cannot get immunized. Those include: getting vaccinated, staying home when sick, washing your hands frequently, wearing high-quality masks when in crowded, indoor settings and trying to improve indoor air circulation.
“Those are going to be the mainstays of preventing any respiratory illness transmission,” Young said. “And influenza is no different.”
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