New Flu Variant Raises Concerns About Bad Flu Season Ahead As Cases Climb In Illinois

Close gatherings over the holidays could cause an uptick in emergency room visits in Illinois due to a respiratory illness.

A new flu strain with climbing cases across the county is garnering the attention of health experts nationwide, with cases in Illinois spiking this month.

Illinois emergency rooms typically see an increase in COVID-19, influenza and RSV rates during the holidays. This year’s flu season could be more serious due to a new Influenza H3N2 mutation known as “subclade K,” which is spreading in North America, including the United States.

Although the current flu vaccine offers protection against the H3N2 strain, it doesn’t cover subclade K, which hadn’t been identified when the vaccine was developed. The variant has mutated seven times, making H3N2 an even more serious threat, according to experts.

The variant has several mutations that differentiate it from previous versions and is a "cousin of what we've always had," Dr. Scott Roberts told the New York Times.

"I wish it were a sibling," he told the newspaper. "But it's not."

Roberts told the New York Times that Illinois residents may be in for another abysmal flu season.

"We generally don't have two bad flu seasons back to back," he said. "But a lot of us are concerned that with this new, slightly more-mutated-than-usual subclade K strain, that we may see that."

The symptoms of the new strain are similar to those of common influenza, including fever, chills, body aches, headaches, extreme fatigue, congestion or a runny nose, and coughing.

In Illinois, hospital admissions for flu have increased since November. The previous season's peak was in February, when 6.9 percent of hospitalizations were due to flu.

.73 percent of hospital admissions are due to flu, according to IDPH data.

That number, experts say, is expected to climb as cases of the new variant grow exponentially in other parts of the country.

Dr. Andrew Pekosz, an infectious disease specialist with the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, told KTLA that the "super flu" strain, or subclade K, is spreading everywhere that influenza is.

"Colorado, Louisiana and New York are [states] that are experiencing really fast increases in influenza," Pekosz said Tuesday during a public health media briefing. "But even in places like Maryland right now, where cases are not that high, it’s the [sub]clade K virus that seems to be the dominant virus."