LIVING HERE
This year’s flu season has been terrible and lingers longer than any other flu.
Experts are already warning that this flu season is tougher than usual and could get worse, especially for kids. Flu activity “remains elevated across the country”, and the CDC says it expects that to continue for several more weeks. More than a dozen states have flu activity levels in the highest category that the agency tracks. CDC surveillance data published last week showed that flu-like activity in the US had reached the highest level on record since the agency started tracking about 30 years ago.
The influx of flu infections is crowding emergency rooms and overwhelming some hospitals. Fueling the majority of cases is a new variant, dubbed the “super flu.” The mutated influenza A H3N2 strain, called subclade K, emerged earlier this year and caused early, severe flu seasons. H3N2 is a familiar strain known to cause more severe flu seasons across all age groups. However, subclade K’s seven new mutations may affect its ability to evade pre-existing immunity, from vaccines or prior infection.
Flu symptoms often start suddenly and intensely. They will make you feel like you’ve been hit by a truck. The flu can last for a few days up to two weeks. Individuals at the highest risk of severe flu and complications include people over the age of 65, children under the age of 2, and people who are immunocompromised or have underlying health conditions. It’s unusual to see two severe flu seasons back-to-back, Roberts adds. However, activity is expected to increase in the coming weeks, and experts warn that this season has yet to peak nationally. It’s not too late to get a flu shot, especially if you are at a higher risk of infection.
The first team representing Wisconsin at Winterfest is Sculptora Borealis.
Their sculpture is named Controller of Worlds. This sculpture is a fun, yet scary depiction of a young alien playing a video game. The video game, Controller of Worlds, allows the player to control humans on Earth. All of us here at Winterfest are just characters inside this video game being controlled by an alien. Pretty crazy idea that is usually quickly dismissed, but several leading minds around the world think we are living in a simulation. Just a little something to make you scratch your head and think about a super abstract concept that people are actually talking about across the planet.
