The latest flu season is over in Florida, with state data showing a high number of pediatric deaths and leaving some public health experts concerned for future seasons as vaccination rates fall.
For the last two years, Florida’s pediatric deaths have been high relative to recent years, with the 2023-2024 and the 2024-2025 seasons both seeing a state total of 20 deaths, according to the Florida Department of Health. This season, Florida’s total made up 9% of the national pediatric deaths observed.
Influenza deaths by the numbers
Nationally, that number is also on the upswing – the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported 216 deaths so far. The year before had a total of 207.
The CDC classified the most recent season as “a high severity season overall and for all age groups.”
However, Cindy Prins, an epidemiologist from the University of Central Florida, had a different way to describe the most recent season.
“We essentially had a bad flu season,” she said. “In fact, it's the highest since the 2009-2010 season, which is when we experienced swine flu. That was a strain that hadn't been seen for a while, where a lot of people didn't have any kind of historic immunity to it, and we had seen a lot of deaths at that point.”
The CDC reported 236 pediatric deaths associated with influenza during the 2009-2010 season.
Of this season’s pediatric deaths in Florida, 16 out of the 20 were reported unvaccinated; three of those deaths occurred in the last month. One death was vaccinated, and three had unknown vaccination statuses.
The 2009 season reported 13 deaths due to influenza in children under the age of 18, according to the FDOH.
The department’s report also showed that of the recent 20 deaths, 15 had underlying conditions. According to the CDC, the most commonly reported conditions were asthma, followed by neurologic disease, and obesity.
Vaccine Rates
“We’re seeing children die from flu at lots of different age groups who are eligible to be vaccinated but are not getting the vaccine. This is something that we know the vaccine may not always be 100% in preventing someone from getting the flu, but it is absolutely effective in helping reduce hospitalizations and help reduce mortality.”
While it’s difficult to point to one underlying factor for the increase in pediatric deaths, Prins said low vaccination rates most certainly didn’t help.
“We're seeing vaccine coverage decrease in all populations this season, and that's not just this season. This is ongoing,” Prins said.
This season, vaccination coverage for children between the ages of 6 months and 17 years of age was 49.2%, according to the CDC. That number has been falling since the 2019-2020 season, when the coverage was 62.4%.
“Annual vaccination is the best way to protect yourself and others from potentially severe complications from flu,” according to the FDOH’s most recent influenza report.
The falling vaccination rates are occurring across most demographics, Prins said.
“It's a consistent decrease that we've been seeing in these populations. And it's not one year or two years, it's going back for several years now. So this is where I'm concerned that we're running into a problem that people are regularly not getting their flu vaccine. They're not having any benefit, even of some kind of past immunity to some of these flu strains,” she said.
Prins said that habitual vaccine users have some protection against the flu even if they miss getting a shot one particular season, but if they miss the shot regularly, that protection wanes.
One group Prins is particularly concerned with is pregnant women.
During this flu season, there were 1,981 hospitalized women of childbearing age – 27.8% were pregnant, the CDC reported.
“Pregnant women who get infected during that pregnancy can have very severe outcomes from influenza,” Prins said.
When to vaccinate for next season
While Florida’s 2024-2025 flu season is over, Prins said the next flu season is around the corner, and the current trend of numbers doesn’t suggest a less severe season for the 2025-2026 period.
Prins advised that the best time to get a flu shot is by Oct. 31 for the most updated vaccine for the upcoming season.
“Another thing to understand is that you know this vaccine is not just for children who have some other underlying condition or illness, children who die from flu don't all have underlying illnesses. You can have a very healthy child who very quickly gets sick with the flu and dies,” she said. “Put it on your calendar. Make it part of one of the reminders that you have in your family.”
