The seasonal flu is, without a doubt, back, and it’s killing more children than ever. New data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that reported child flu deaths reached a record high last winter.
CDC experts laid out the sobering data in a paper published late last month. At least 280 children died of the flu during the 2024 to 2025 season—the highest such toll recorded since modern tracking began two decades ago. It’s the second straight winter that pediatric deaths have reached a record peak, which may not bode well for this upcoming flu season.
A modern worst for flu
The seasonal flu, like many infectious diseases, took a hiatus during the first years of the covid-19 pandemic. The same measures taken to reduce the spread of the pandemic, such as social distancing, also substantially reduced transmission of flu and other garden-variety germs. But as the world returned to normal, so too did diseases like influenza.
Flu cases, hospitalizations, and deaths began to climb back to their usual trends during the 2022 to 2023 season. But last winter’s flu was one of the worst ever recorded in modern history. It was the first high-severity flu season for age groups documented since the 2017-2018 season; the cumulative hospitalization rate was the highest recorded since the 2010-2011 season; and between 27,000 and 130,000 flu-associated deaths occurred, based on the CDC’s preliminary estimates.
Since 2004, doctors and hospitals have been obligated to report any child deaths linked to flu to their local health departments; this then allows the CDC to directly track U.S. flu deaths in children for any given season. The 280 pediatric deaths seen last winter are the highest toll recorded in the modern era, and only slightly below the 288 deaths seen during the H1N1 flu pandemic of 2009-2010.
Nearly all these deaths occurred among unvaccinated children (89%), while about half happened in children with no preexisting health conditions.
A sign of things to come?
The strength of this upcoming flu season will depend on many factors, including the inherent severity of the flu strains circulating around the world. But there are already reasons why we should be worried about how hard next winter’s flu will hit children (and adults, for that matter).
For starters, the flu vaccination coverage was lower for children last winter than it was the previous flu season. And in fact, the flu vaccination rate in general has been sliding compared to before the pandemic.
The anti-vaccination movement has also reached new heights of power, thanks to the installation of figures like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in the Trump administration. In less than a year’s time, RFK Jr. and his allies have succeeded at removing or weakening several childhood vaccines based on shoddy evidence, and they’ve continued to promote the widely debunked link between vaccines and autism.
Most Americans do still support vaccines, generally. And Kennedy has continued to quietly endorse the seasonal flu vaccine for children and adults (for now at least). But his policy changes and public podium could certainly increase vaccine hesitancy for the flu shot and others.
Seasonal flu vaccines aren’t 100% effective at preventing infection. But they have and will remain highly effective at preventing the worst outcomes of flu, including severe illness and death. So if children and their families aren’t getting vaccinated against flu, it may not take long to reach another new record high in child flu deaths.
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