Flu cases skyrocket as ‘Super-K’ strain spreads north<\/a><\/p>\nIncreasingly low vaccination rates, more summer indoor gatherings and a new mutation of a highly infectious strain are driving the spike in flu cases, experts say.<\/p>\n
Between January and July the number of COVID-19 deaths were about 1,279, higher than influenza deaths which were 682.<\/p>\n
But during the second peak in summer between August and December 2025 there were about 741 influenza deaths, compared to about 428 COVID-related deaths.<\/p>\n
There was a small fall in influenza deaths in November before they began to rise again in December.<\/p>\n
Professor Bennett from Deakin University said the influenza strain Subclade K extended the flu season into summer.<\/p>\n
She added that variant was different to other H3N2 variants.<\/p>\n
“The H factor, the Hemagglutinin protein, had a number of different mutations in it that we hadn’t seen before,” she said.<\/p>\n
“That meant the vaccine, or prior immunity, wasn’t as well targeted to this new virus.<\/p>\n
“That’s why we saw more cases in this continuation of our winter outbreak.<\/p>\n
“We saw almost a summer wave of influenza that we don’t usually see.”COVID peaks decline<\/p>\n
The ABS said it had begun to notice a shift in the severity of the COVID-19 peaks beginning in November 2024 and January 2025.<\/p>\n
“When compared with October 2024 the number of deaths occurring during this period was much lower than other years,” the ABS said.<\/p>\n
“Preliminary data does not show a summer peak in 2025-2026. The ABS will continue to monitor this as additional death registrations are received.”<\/p>\n
Professor Bennett added that COVID-19 was becoming a seasonal virus which largely impacted the winter months.<\/p>\n
“So winter, and if you look at the deaths it’s still a very significant virus, it’s still responsible for more deaths through the winter than influenza,” she said.<\/p>\n
“[But] COVID for the first time really had much less impact over the summer in terms of deaths.”Summer flu peak not always likely, expert says<\/p>\n
There have been other years where summer has seen a rise in influenza deaths, according to Professor Bennett.<\/p>\n
In 2017 there were about 1,656 influenza deaths recorded.<\/p>\n
“We did see a shift. It doesn’t mean influenza’s going to change and we’re going to have a summer wave every year,” she said.<\/p>\n
“So it’s really a reminder that this year we’ve seen 2017 numbers for influenza deaths.<\/p>\n
“That was one of our worst years on record.”<\/p>\n
Professor Bennett said there were also a combination of factors at play contributing to the summer flu wave experienced this year.<\/p>\n
“Vaccination rates are a lot lower and leaving more people vulnerable,” she said.<\/p>\n
“Combined with this continued winter wave, particularly with this new sub variant influenza, that’s actually made it a pretty awful year for respiratory disease altogether.”<\/p>\n
But the focus, she said, should be on increasing vaccination rates, especially for those over the age of 70 who are most vulnerable.<\/p>\n
The majority of deaths related to COVID-19, RSV and influenza occurred in the over-70 age group.<\/p>\n
That concerned Professor Bennett because only about 60 per cent of people over the age of 65 were covered by the flu vaccine<\/a>.<\/p>\n“There’s still a lot of people who aren’t vaccinated, including in those groups where they’re vulnerable to severe disease that could in fact be a cause of death for them,” she said.<\/p>\n
“So like all vaccines, it might not protect you from infection, but it can reduce the severity of disease and the likelihood that someone will pass away as a result of that disease.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There were more deaths associated with influenza last year than any other year this century, according to the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":500435,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[64,63,4880,144,137,2166,145,3850],"class_list":{"0":"post-500434","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-covid-19","11":"tag-flu","12":"tag-health","13":"tag-infectious-diseases","14":"tag-influenza","15":"tag-rsv"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500434","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=500434"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500434\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/500435"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=500434"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=500434"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=500434"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}