January 7, 2026 • 5 mins
Florida is one of the states reporting a very high level of influenza activity, according to the CDC. That means more crowded hospitals and doctors' offices. We talk with USF microbiology professor Jill Roberts PhD about this outbreak and how to deal with it.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Gordon Bird here beyond the news. Florida is among several
states reporting a very high level of flu activity as
we move through early January. The Centers for Disease Control
reporting very high activity in its latest update. Doctor Jill Roberts,
PhD is someone we've spoken with before at USF Health.
She's a professor with the Department of Global Environmental and
(00:21):
Genomic Health Sciences at USF And welcome in again.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Thank you for having me me first.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
Of all, what does it mean when we have very
high activity in terms of hospitalizations, doctor visits, in terms
of you know, what people see when they need to
go and get health services.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Sure, of course. So normally we do actually have what
we call a flu season. You're probably familiar with that term.
Around the end of the year and going into the
beginning of the next year, we typically do see flu
cases increasing. What's a little bit unique right now is
just the sheer numbers of the cases. So normally we
would see flu peak around the beginning to mid February,
(01:05):
we typically see about the sixth week of the year
or so, but we're in the first week of the year,
and so that's a little concerning that the numbers are
so high right now, my concern would be, of course,
people who are looking for care are going to be
seeing a lot of competition. Right So, if you were
to go to see your doctor right now, they're reporting
about one in ten people who are visiting the doctor
(01:28):
are coming in with flu like symptoms.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
And from what you're seeing and hearing, what's this flu like?
Is it different in terms of symptoms or stronger than
what we've seen what we see in a typical year.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
Yeah, those numbers are a little bit high, and so
sometimes it's unsure until we get all the numbers for
this season whether it's really more severe or not. But
it's awfully early in the year to be seeing so
many reports of hospitalizations. For example, the numbers are pretty
high compared to previous years, and so it's not uncommon
(02:02):
to sometimes have a bad flu year. And so what
it looks like is that we're probably having a rather
bad flu year. Are the symptoms worse than usual? Probably
not the same things we always see. The cop the
sore throat influenza has that characteristic tiredness that people say,
you just feel like you got hit by a bus.
(02:25):
One or other key symptom of it is it just
lasts and lingers for a very long time now?
Speaker 1 (02:30):
Is influenza the only bug that's out there to worry
about or are we dealing with others this season?
Speaker 2 (02:36):
Yeah, it's got a little bit of a competition, but
I would say it's the headliner at the current time.
We've been seeing some COVID circulating, but it's that pretty
low amounts. There's RSV round, there's a virus called metanuma
virus that was making a lot of splash before flu
kind of took over the narrative. So it's got competition,
(02:58):
and we're used to this normally in winter when we
start to see more people crowding and staying indoors, we
create those conditions in which viruses can spread more easily.
Now to kind of turn that into the perfect storm,
then we put everybody on airplanes and fly the viruses
all over the country. And so this is pretty typical
for this time of year to see multiple viruses. If
(03:19):
you're trying to differentiate the symptoms can help. So influenza
does not cause a lack of smell, for example, that's
really something that we see with COVID, and you really
don't see a lot of high fevers with viruses other
than influenza. Influenza can cause kind of a high fever,
and so there are ways to differentiate them.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
It almost goes without saying, but is this a good
time to double down on precautions and what are the
usual precautions we need to take and what kind of
measures do we need to take to try to avoid
or lessen the chance of getting sick.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
Yes, sure, of course. So. Unfortunately, one of the best
things you can do is one of the things that's
least popular, which is where a mat. So what we
really saw during the COVID years, there was a year
there that all the flu cases were really missing, and
the strain that has been circulating at the time disappeared,
and this was due to people wearing masks all over
(04:15):
the place trying to prevent COVID from spreading. And so
we figured out accidentally, although it was pretty well known
that a mask would really work very well at preventing
the spread of influenza. So if you do know that
you have the flu, you can wear the mask to
prevent it spreading to other people. And of course if
you're at high risk, you may want to wear a
(04:36):
mask when you go out to places that have a
lot of people. When you travel things like that, don't
discount the value of washing your hands. And so hand
washing can help us spread viruses that have landed on surfaces,
and so that's important, really important that if we have
family members that are sick, we want to keep them home,
we want to keep them from cooking for the family.
(04:57):
And of course we don't want to skip on the vaccine.
And so the influenza vaccine may not be a perfect
match to this year's strain. There's a mutation that occurred. However,
that occurs a lot of times, and you still see
the influence of vaccine preventing from serious disease and hospitalization.
The same is true for the RSV vaccines and the
(05:19):
COVID vaccines.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
All good points. Doctor Jill Roberts, PhD with USF Health,
a professor with the Department of Global, Environmental and Genomic
Health Sciences, thank you again for joining us on Beyond
the News.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
My pleasure and thank you
Gordon Bird here beyond the news. Florida is among several
states reporting a very high level of flu activity as
we move through early January. The Centers for Disease Control
reporting very high activity in its latest update. Doctor Jill Roberts,
PhD is someone we've spoken with before at USF Health.
She's a professor with the Department of Global Environmental and
(00:21):
Genomic Health Sciences at USF And welcome in again.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Thank you for having me me first.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
Of all, what does it mean when we have very
high activity in terms of hospitalizations, doctor visits, in terms
of you know, what people see when they need to
go and get health services.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Sure, of course. So normally we do actually have what
we call a flu season. You're probably familiar with that term.
Around the end of the year and going into the
beginning of the next year, we typically do see flu
cases increasing. What's a little bit unique right now is
just the sheer numbers of the cases. So normally we
would see flu peak around the beginning to mid February,
(01:05):
we typically see about the sixth week of the year
or so, but we're in the first week of the year,
and so that's a little concerning that the numbers are
so high right now, my concern would be, of course,
people who are looking for care are going to be
seeing a lot of competition. Right So, if you were
to go to see your doctor right now, they're reporting
about one in ten people who are visiting the doctor
(01:28):
are coming in with flu like symptoms.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
And from what you're seeing and hearing, what's this flu like?
Is it different in terms of symptoms or stronger than
what we've seen what we see in a typical year.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
Yeah, those numbers are a little bit high, and so
sometimes it's unsure until we get all the numbers for
this season whether it's really more severe or not. But
it's awfully early in the year to be seeing so
many reports of hospitalizations. For example, the numbers are pretty
high compared to previous years, and so it's not uncommon
(02:02):
to sometimes have a bad flu year. And so what
it looks like is that we're probably having a rather
bad flu year. Are the symptoms worse than usual? Probably
not the same things we always see. The cop the
sore throat influenza has that characteristic tiredness that people say,
you just feel like you got hit by a bus.
(02:25):
One or other key symptom of it is it just
lasts and lingers for a very long time now?
Speaker 1 (02:30):
Is influenza the only bug that's out there to worry
about or are we dealing with others this season?
Speaker 2 (02:36):
Yeah, it's got a little bit of a competition, but
I would say it's the headliner at the current time.
We've been seeing some COVID circulating, but it's that pretty
low amounts. There's RSV round, there's a virus called metanuma
virus that was making a lot of splash before flu
kind of took over the narrative. So it's got competition,
(02:58):
and we're used to this normally in winter when we
start to see more people crowding and staying indoors, we
create those conditions in which viruses can spread more easily.
Now to kind of turn that into the perfect storm,
then we put everybody on airplanes and fly the viruses
all over the country. And so this is pretty typical
for this time of year to see multiple viruses. If
(03:19):
you're trying to differentiate the symptoms can help. So influenza
does not cause a lack of smell, for example, that's
really something that we see with COVID, and you really
don't see a lot of high fevers with viruses other
than influenza. Influenza can cause kind of a high fever,
and so there are ways to differentiate them.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
It almost goes without saying, but is this a good
time to double down on precautions and what are the
usual precautions we need to take and what kind of
measures do we need to take to try to avoid
or lessen the chance of getting sick.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
Yes, sure, of course. So. Unfortunately, one of the best
things you can do is one of the things that's
least popular, which is where a mat. So what we
really saw during the COVID years, there was a year
there that all the flu cases were really missing, and
the strain that has been circulating at the time disappeared,
and this was due to people wearing masks all over
(04:15):
the place trying to prevent COVID from spreading. And so
we figured out accidentally, although it was pretty well known
that a mask would really work very well at preventing
the spread of influenza. So if you do know that
you have the flu, you can wear the mask to
prevent it spreading to other people. And of course if
you're at high risk, you may want to wear a
(04:36):
mask when you go out to places that have a
lot of people. When you travel things like that, don't
discount the value of washing your hands. And so hand
washing can help us spread viruses that have landed on surfaces,
and so that's important, really important that if we have
family members that are sick, we want to keep them home,
we want to keep them from cooking for the family.
(04:57):
And of course we don't want to skip on the vaccine.
And so the influenza vaccine may not be a perfect
match to this year's strain. There's a mutation that occurred. However,
that occurs a lot of times, and you still see
the influence of vaccine preventing from serious disease and hospitalization.
The same is true for the RSV vaccines and the
(05:19):
COVID vaccines.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
All good points. Doctor Jill Roberts, PhD with USF Health,
a professor with the Department of Global, Environmental and Genomic
Health Sciences, thank you again for joining us on Beyond
the News.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
My pleasure and thank you
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