Respiratory Illnesses Spike In Fairfax County, Health Officials Say

FAIRFAX, VA — Respiratory illness activity in the Fairfax County Health District has increased to its highest level since February, according to the latest data from the Virginia Department of Health.

For the week starting Dec. 21, acute respiratory infections accounted for 39.11 percent of emergency room visits in Fairfax County, according to the respiratory illness dashboard. That's the highest percentage of visits due to respiratory infections since Feb. 2, when respiratory infections accounted for 39.36 percent of emergency room visits.

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

The latest numbers for acute respiratory infections are higher than those reported during the two previous holiday seasons, with 34.27 percent reported on Dec. 22, 2024 and 36.79 percent on Dec. 24, 2023.

Related: New Flu Mutation Causes Severe Illness: See Latest VA Data

Fairfax County health officials recommend getting vaccinated, washing your hands often, covering coughs and sneezes, and staying home if you're sick in order to protect yourself and others from sickness.

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.

“Knowing that there’s a new mutated strain out there and H3N2 generally causes more severe disease is concerning,” Dr. Robert Hopkins Jr., medical director of the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases, told NBC’s “Today” show.

Learn More: Actions To Take To Protect Yourself

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

The CDC currently lists Influenza A H3N2 as the cause of most flu cases in the United States. The extent of the spread of the subclade K mutation in the United States is unknown because the agency didn’t do any tracking for its FluView report during the recent government shutdown.

"During Week 51, of the 2,086 influenza viruses reported by public health laboratories, 2,029 were influenza A and 57 were influenza B," according to CDC's report, which was updated on Tuesday. "Of the 1,627 influenza A viruses subtyped during Week 51, 134 (8.2%) were influenza A(H1N1)pdm09 and 1,493 (91.8%) were A(H3N2)."