In a horrific turn of events for families and health professionals across the country, America just experienced its worst flu season in over a decade, and children were the hardest hit. 216 child flu deaths were reported in the 2024–2025 season, the highest number since the swine flu outbreak during the 2009–2010 season, as stated by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Kids were hit the hardest, even though the health authorities have labeled it a “high severity season,” a rare designation that applies to all age groups.
New York State’s health commissioner, Dr. James McDonald, explained quite simply: “This flu season was particularly tragic for our youngest population.” Deaths caused by the flu killed 25 children in New York alone, the highest the state has ever experienced. Astonishingly, only one of those children had been vaccinated against the flu.
The children’s flu fatalities were not single cases. Children’s hospitals across the country were flooded with young kids developing organ failure and pneumonia due to the virus. Flu-hospitalizations in kids between the ages of 5 and 17 went up by 145% at their height in early February. An alarming spike in major cases was reported by pediatric critical care centers, especially in big regions such as Washington, D.C.
Children’s National Hospital pediatric critical-care doctor Dr. Anita Patel stated, “This is the worst flu season I’ve seen in over a decade.” “The flu can be very deadly; we had kids who were previously healthy and needed ventilators.”
An estimated at least 47 million cases of flu were seen across the country this year, which have claimed 26,000 lives and hospitalized 610,000, as per CDC estimates. But more of a closer examination of prevention, misinformation, and trust is being called for by the record number of children dying from the flu.
Experts say that the growing wave of vaccine hesitancy is one of the leading factors in this deadly season. Just 55.4% of children from six months to seventeen years got a flu shot during the 2023–24 season, the CDC reported. That’s a dramatic drop from 63.7% just a few years earlier.
Scientists assert that the spread of misinformation regarding vaccines on social media is part of the reason for this decline. In a recent study, the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University cited social media as a key source of distrust and proposed “prebunking” programs to educate the public prior to their exposure to misinformation.
Misinformation is most common on social media. But it can also play a role in the answer,” said the lead author of the study, Professor Kai Ruggeri.
A meeting of a federal advisory committee charged with creating the flu vaccine for the next season was canceled by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in a highly disputed action that public health experts denounced. It is considered by most as sending the wrong message during a public health crisis.
Despite these challenges, Dr. McDonald is hopeful. “Life is saved by vaccines. The public must be better educated, especially at a time when fiction and fear are battling facts and truth.
One message is clear as the nation begins to weigh this awful flu season: vaccine hesitancy has real-world consequences. Sadly, they are real, and they are only becoming worse.”.
