Everything you need to know about the deadly flu epidemic sweeping the US by Hilary Brueck on Jan 26, 2018, 4:00 PM Advertisement
 Flu experts agree: the 2017-2018 flu season may not be a full-blown pandemic, but it sure is nasty. The flu is widespread across 49 US states right now. It's the first time scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) say that's ever happened in their 13 years of tracking the flu. The epidemic has been an especially tough one for baby boomers, and officials at the CDC say that could be in part because they weren't exposed to this year's most agressive H3N2 strain as children. It's nearly impossible to predict how this flu season will end, because flu viruses never follow predictable models from year to year. Still, there are a few simple things we can do to stay healthy and safe this season. Here's what you need to know about the flu: SEE ALSO: This year's deadly flu season is reaching its peak — here's how to tell if you're contagious It's been a season of horror stories about the deadly, vaccine-resistant flu. On Friday the CDC called this the worst season since the 2009 swine flu.  Some 37 children have died across the country, and experts think the real number could be double the official reports. In hard-hit California at least 97 people under the age of 65 have died from this season's flu so far. As of early January, most of those deaths were un-vaccinated adults, the California Department of Health told Business Insider. But this year has not yet reached the pandemic levels of 2009.
It's been deadly, but this season is not a pandemic.  Flu viruses can shift rapidly, making them harder to vaccinate for year to year, and tough to predict. (That's part of the reason why drug-makers have such a tough time coming up with a "universal" vaccine for the flu that would protect you for life.) The standard for what counts as an "epidemic" changes a little from season to season and even week to week, but the CDC's latest numbers say we've reached epidemic levels. That means the flu is quickly spreading, and so there are more fatal flu cases than what should normally be expected.
Pandemic flu happens "when a new flu virus emerges that can infect people and spread globally" quickly and efficiently, the CDC says.  The flu reaches epidemic levels (like we're experiencing now) at some point every season. But pandemic flu levels are even more dangerous. Long before the 2009 swine flu pandemic, there was the deadly 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, which spread around the world, infecting about one in every five people, and killing 50 million. That's more casualties than WW1.
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