BERRIEN COUNTY, Mich. (WNDU) – State health officials are tracking an early increase in flu hospitalizations across Michigan, with 173 flu-related hospital admissions reported during the first three weeks of October.<\/p>\n
That total is more than four times higher than the number reported at the same time last year, according to the Berrien County Health Department.<\/p>\n
With holiday travel approaching and the flu vaccine taking two weeks to become fully effective, the Berrien County Health Department is urging residents to get vaccinated now.<\/p>\n
The department says flu shots are available by appointment regardless of insurance status or ability to pay. Appointments are available from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday and Tuesday at the department\u2019s Benton Harbor office (2149 E. Napier Avenue) and from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday at its Niles office (1205 Front Street).<\/p>\n
Appointments can be made by calling 269-926-7121. More information about Berrien County Health Department immunization services is available here<\/a>.<\/p>\n Stay up to date on local news with WNDU<\/a> on-air and online. Be sure to download the 16 News Now App<\/a> and follow our YouTube<\/a> page as we continue to bring you the latest news coverage.<\/p>\n Copyright 2026 WNDU. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BERRIEN COUNTY, Mich. (WNDU) – State health officials are tracking an early increase in flu hospitalizations across Michigan,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":952254,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[325719,325722,49,48,325720,84,325718,325721,224498],"class_list":["post-952253","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-berrien-county-flu-shots","tag-berrien-county-health-department","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-flu-vaccine-appointments","tag-health","tag-michigan-flu-hospitalizations","tag-niles-flu-vaccinations","tag-wndu"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/952253","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=952253"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/952253\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/952254"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=952253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=952253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=952253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}