{"id":68570,"date":"2025-12-23T15:05:11","date_gmt":"2025-12-23T15:05:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/68570\/"},"modified":"2025-12-23T15:05:11","modified_gmt":"2025-12-23T15:05:11","slug":"number-of-flu-cases-in-erie-county-up-115-in-december","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/68570\/","title":{"rendered":"Number of flu cases in Erie County up 115% in December"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Cases of the flu continue to rise against across the state and in Western New York.<\/p>\n<p>The New York State Flu Health Tracker says that between the week of Dec. 6 -13, the number of flu cases in Erie County rose by 115%.<\/p>\n<p>As of Dec. 13, there are\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/nyshc.health.ny.gov\/web\/nyapd\/new-york-state-flu-tracker\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">over 2,700 flu cases and 235 hospitalizations in Western New York<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The Erie County Department of Health is urging all residents ages 6 months and older to get their annual flu vaccine.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Getting a flu vaccine takes just a few minutes, and provides a base of protection for you, your household and our community,&#8221; said Commissioner of Health Dr. Gale Burstein. &#8220;We ring the bell on this every year, but trends are pointing to a more severe flu season, with cases already rising. The New York State Department of Health (NYSDOH) reported a recent 30% increase in flu cases in one week. Vaccination is especially critical for older adults, pregnant people and young children, who are all at higher risk for serious complications.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Being sick with the flu means feeling miserable for up to a week \u2013 missing school, missing work, and missing out on your favorite activities, and even longer to fully recover,&#8221; explained Dr. Burstein. &#8220;When making the choice to get a flu vaccine, remember that one dose will reduce the risk of serious illness or even a hospital stay for you or a family member.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, numbers across the state as a whole increased by 83% in the same time period.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cases of the flu continue to rise against across the state and in Western New York. The New&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":68571,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[36285,1611,136,138,137,1057,139,1592],"class_list":{"0":"post-68570","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-erie","8":"tag-app-health","9":"tag-buffalo","10":"tag-erie","11":"tag-erie-headlines","12":"tag-erie-news","13":"tag-health","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-spectrum-news-staff"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68570","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68570"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68570\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68571"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}