page_title: 2017–2018 United States flu season
section_title: Effects
hierarchical_section_title: 2017–2018 United States flu season / Effects
caption_attribution_description: English: The geographic distribution of Influenza A H3N2 virus cases by state in the United States in 2017, and the number of hogs (pigs) in the United States by state in 2017. The number of influenza cases was obtained from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The number of pigs is obtained from the 2017 Census of Agriculture, United States Department of Agriculture National Agricultural Services.
context_page_description: The 2017–2018 United States flu season lasted from late 2017 through early 2018. The predominant strain of influenza was H3N2. During the spring months of March–May, influenza B virus became dominant.
  In all states except Hawaii and Oregon, the distribution of influenza was indicated as widespread, including 32 states that had high flu activity. The flu season was exacerbated by a shortage of IV bags caused by IV bag plant closures in Puerto Rico following Hurricane María. The CDC estimates that between 46,000 and 95,000 Americans died due to influenza during the 2017-18 flu season.
context_section_description: The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) began counting the 2017–2018 "flu season" as October 2017, and by early February 2018, the epidemic was still widespread and increasing overall. By February 2018, the CDC said that the circulating virus strains included both B strains (Yamagata and Victoria), H1N1 and H3N2. On 10 February 2018, Fortune reported that influenza in the United States was killing up to 4,000 Americans a week, likely to far outstrip the rate of deaths in the 2009–2010 season. An expert from the CDC, Anne Schuchat, said that the main type of the flu that year had not "changed enough from previous seasons to be considered a novel strain." In the first week of February, deaths from influenza and pneumonia were responsible for one of every ten deaths in the US, with 4,064 from pneumonia or influenza recorded in the third week of 2018, according to CDC data. The CDC also reported 63 child deaths at that point, half of which were not considered medically high risk, and only about 20 percent who were vaccinated. Only two of those deaths were babies under six months old.
  The 2017–2018 flu season was severe for all US populations and resulted in an estimated 959,000 hospitalizations and 61,099 deaths. This is the highest number of patient claims since the 2009 flu season. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, during the 2017-2018 season the percentage of deaths attributed to pneumonia and influenza (P&I) was at or above the epidemic threshold for 16 consecutive weeks. Nationally, mortality attributed to P&I exceeded 10.0% for four consecutive weeks, peaking at 10.8% during the week ending January 20, 2018. Another estimate (September 2018) attributed more than 80,000 US deaths to this strain of influenza.    While 186 pediatric deaths were reported to the CDC, it is estimated that there were in reality more than 600 total pediatric deaths nationwide related to influenza. This estimation of three times the reported pediatric deaths was arrived at based on the observation that about two-thirds of children who died with a suspected viral background were not tested for influenza.
caption: Influenza cases in 2017 in the United States
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