Health Officials Recommend Flu Shots For All

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) - If you are hoping to keep your family "flu-free" this winter, health officials say now is the time to get vaccinated.

Some cases of the flu have already been reported, but there aren't enough illnesses to predict what kind of flu season lies ahead.

Last year in Minnesota, more flu cases were reported than the pandemic years of 2009 and 2010.

"I've never had it, so I don't want to get it," said Kelly Coleman.

Coleman gets a flu shot every year. She does it not only to keep herself from getting sick, but her family, too.

"I just don't want to take the risk of going to the grocery store, coming home and transferring it to my family," Coleman said.

Last flu season, more than 4,000 Minnesotans were hospitalized because of influenza. That's more than twice as many as the pandemic years of 2009 and 2010.

"What they are expecting is the strain that was there last year is a similar strain to this year," said Dr. Mark Stevenson of Allina Health.

Stevenson said it's too early to predict how widespread the flu will be this year. But he said there's hope we could see fewer people getting sick.

"There's a good chance it will be less severe because they changed the vaccine this year to correspond to what they think is going to be the most common strain," said Dr. Stevenson.

But the trick is to get it now. Health officials said for most people, the vaccine is effective for about six or seven months.

"We always remind people that it's never too late to be vaccinated," said Kris Ehresmann, the director for infectious disease at the Department of Health. "If you get vaccinated at the end of October, beginning of November, that's not a problem."

Ehresmann looks at the flu vaccine as a way to be socially responsible.

"If you develop influenza, you may be healthy enough to fight it off," she said. "But someone around you, someone at your work, may not be. So if you pass it to them it could be deadly for them."

Stevenson told us he actually prefers the nasal spray over the flu shot, because he said the mist builds up immunity not only in the blood but the nasal passages as well.

But the mist is only available for people between the ages of 2 and 49.

There is also a delay on the mist right now.

It continues to come in to clinics, but the manufacturer is working to get caught up.