Humanities teacher Cathy Barker gets her flu shot Wednesday at Duncan Middle School.
Flu seasons are unpredictable in a number of ways.
Although widespread flu activity occurs every year, the timing, severity and duration of it depend on many factors, including which flu viruses are spreading, the number of people who are susceptible to the circulating flu viruses and how similar vaccine viruses are to the flu viruses that are causing illness.
The timing of flu can vary from season to season. In the United States, seasonal flu activity most commonly peaks between December and March, but flu viruses can cause illness from early October to late May. Flu viruses are thought to spread mainly from person to person through coughs and sneezes of infected people. Less often, a person also might get the flu by touching a surface or object that has flu virus on it and then touching their own mouth, eyes, or nose.
Many respiratory infections spread from person to person and cause symptoms similar to those of flu. Each day, about 55 million students and 7 million staff attend the more than 130,000 public and private schools in the United States.
At Duncan Middle School, flu season hit hard during the 2017-18 school year, causing school to be cancelled one day. On Wednesday, Walgreens administered flu shots to teachers and staff members who chose to get a shot.
