TAMPA, Fla. \u2014 Christmas has come and gone, yet sickness in some families has overstayed its welcome.<\/p>\n
Callen Jones has the flu, and it\u2019s swept across their whole family.<\/p>\n
Watch full report from Mary O’Connell<\/p>\n
Families face flu as Tampa Bay doctors see more cases around holidays<\/p>\n
\u201cIt hit me, and it was one of those where we all knew what was going to happen, so five of six of us aren\u2019t great,\u201d said Jones. “We\u2019ve had a couple positive Influenza A tests. Unfortunately, everybody else is getting better, and I am not.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jones said coughing, body aches, and fatigue are just a few of their symptoms.<\/p>\n
\u201cLast week when I was here when I tested positive, they said that every flu test they had done last week was positive,\u201d said Jones.<\/p>\n
Dr. Timothy Hendrix, the Chief Medical Officer for AdventHealth Centra Care, said they\u2019re seeing a huge number of patients coming in with flu right now.<\/p>\n
“We\u2019re seeing a rapid increase week to week in the last three or four weeks of influenza cases, so we\u2019re at about 2,000 cases of influenza just last week at our Florida Centra Cares,\u201d said Hendrix.<\/p>\n
You might\u2019ve also heard about a \u201csuperbug.\u201d Dr. Hendrix explained what that is.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is the flu, but what\u2019s different about it this year is that the vaccine that we\u2019ve been administering since the fall to prevent influenza, the virus that is out there has mutated where there may be some escape from our immune system, from that immunity that we get with the vaccine,\u201d said Hendrix. \u201cNow, it doesn\u2019t mean that your vaccine is ineffective. It just isn\u2019t as effective.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tampa Bay 28 asked Dr. Hendrix if it\u2019s too late for people to get the flu shot.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, we\u2019re still giving flu shots,\u201d said Hendrix. “We recommend you get your flu shot. Even though you\u2019re concerned that it may not be as effective, it still is effective.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hendrix said influenza classically has a rapid onset of fever, and recognizing early that you have influenza is important so you can get started on an anti-viral like Tamiflu.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you\u2019re sick, I hope you feel better because this is not fun,\u201d said Jones.<\/p>\n
Share Your Story with Mary![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/MaryOConnell.png\"\/)
Mary O\u2019Connell has a primary focus on education-related stories for Tampa Bay 28. But she also keeps an eye on public health concerns and the always-changing car insurance market. Reach out to Mary to share any of your questions or concerns.
.<\/p>\n
![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Trending_Video_TampaBay28.png\"\/)
<\/p>\n
Hillsborough County woman nearly loses $10k to elaborate sheriff’s office phone scam<\/p>\n
Sheri Amarillas was sitting in her car on a Tuesday morning, about to walk into an appointment after dropping her kids off at school, when she received a voicemail that would lead to an hour-and-a-half ordeal with sophisticated scammers.<\/p>\n
Hillsborough County woman nearly loses $10k to elaborate sheriff’s office phone scam<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TAMPA, Fla. \u2014 Christmas has come and gone, yet sickness in some families has overstayed its welcome. Callen…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":100421,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[205,52667,52668,52669,42316,52670,276,135,3670,52671,137,136,208],"class_list":["post-100420","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-abc-action-news","tag-advent-health","tag-adventhealth-centra-care","tag-dr-timothy-hendrix","tag-florida-flu","tag-flu-cases","tag-hillsborough-county","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-bay-local-news","tag-tampa-flu","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news","tag-wfts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100420","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100420"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100420\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/100421"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100420"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100420"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100420"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}