Flu cases spike in Pa., packing emergency rooms and leading to dozens of deaths

When Jeff and Joan McPartland went to their local emergency room on Friday, they were stunned by what they encountered.

“We walked into that emergency room, and it was bedlam,” said Jeff McPartland of Camp Hill. “There were sick people all over the place…coughing and hacking their lungs out. When I left that night, they were still sitting there in the ER. I mean it was just as full.”

Joan McPartland, who went to the emergency room at UPMC West Shore in Hampden Township with complications following back surgery, was among the few people there that day for non-respiratory illnesses.

“I mean, the nurses told us,” Jeff McPartland said.

As influenza cases surge across dozens of states, hospitals and health officials in Pennsylvania are characterizing the current flu season as severe — and likely to get worse.

According to federal data, 42 people have died from flu-related complications in Pennsylvania this season.

“It’s clear that it is higher than it typically has been during the last several seasons,” said Dr. John Goldman, infectious disease specialist at UPMC in central Pennsylvania. “If you look specifically at Pennsylvania, it’s actually classified as high, but it’s not at the very highest.”

New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Massachusetts currently have higher rates of influenza than Pennsylvania.

“A lot of states around us have higher levels of the flu,” Goldman said. “The way I’m interpreting that is that the flu is probably going to get worse here.”

Health officials track the number of people going to the ER with flu symptoms, not the number who are formally diagnosed.

Health officials typically consider a 3% outpatient respiratory illness visits the threshold for the start of the flu season. In the past few weeks, that rate has shot up to 8%, surpassing that of recent years.

“To put that into perspective, that’s higher than it’s been at any point during Covid since at least 2020,” Goldman said. “So anytime within the last five years. Typically, what we see is the flu season really start to go up in early January, if we’re lucky. It peaks during the first or second, sometimes the third week in January, and then begins to go down. It’s not clear it’s going straight up right now. So it’s not clear that it’s reached its peak.”

The flu sends people to the hospital

Patient visits to the ER at Penn State Health Hampden Medical Center, for example, is markedly elevated, according to Dr. Dan McLaughlin, medical director of the emergency department.

Winter season is typically busy at the medical center, but it is “more pronounced this year,” he said, up about 10% compared to the same time last year.

He said December 2025 was 6% busier than December 2024.

The state health department of health is tracking flu activity in Pennsylvania, and currently rates it as stable, even though it rates “very high.” Activity is also increasing rapidly for RSV and COVID-19.

“While increases in respiratory viruses are typical during winter months, there are indications that this respiratory virus season may be more intense than usual, and the full impact will not be apparent for weeks,” an official from the department said in an email to PennLive.

According to state health data, the flu as of Jan. 3, has accounted for:

• 50,221 laboratory-confirmed influenza cases
• 4,922 adult hospital admissions
• 1,234 pediatric hospital admissions
• 42 flu-related deaths

The percent of emergency department visits with flu diagnosis is currently “very high” for all ages statewide.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that more than 33,000 people were admitted to a hospital as a result of respiratory illness in the past week.

The CDC estimates that at least 11 million Americans have taken ill as a result of the flu, with about 120,000 of them ending up admitted into a hospital. The agency is reporting 5,000 deaths from flu so far this season. Eight children have died.

Goldman said most people admitted to hospitals have underlying health conditions, such as asthma, congestive heart failure, emphysema or other respiratory conditions. These health risks make people more vulnerable to the flu and can easily lead to health complications compared to healthy individuals.

“I left my crystal ball at home today, but if I were to predict, I would predict it’s going to go up for the next couple of weeks,” Goldman said. “And we’re going to see increasing visits to the ER and increasing hospitalizations. I hope to be wrong.”

New strain side steps flu shot

Health experts are attributing much of the flu surge to the strain known as A H3N2, which has historically caused the most hospitalizations and deaths in older people. The strain accounts for the prevalent flu strain this season. Health experts are particularly tracking the H3N2 subclade K variant, which is being reported in 90% of cases. The strain is a different variant from the strain in this year’s flu shots.

The so-called subclade K led to early outbreaks in the United Kingdom, Japan and Canada this year.

“There’s no evidence that this new subclade causes more severe disease or results in hospitalizations or death with more frequency,” Goldman said. “However, when you have more flu, you have more people who end up being hospitalized or end up dying simply because if you have a greater number, even if the percentage who end up with severe disease remains the same, if you have more cases, you have more severe disease.”

Because the subclade K is getting around pre-existing immunity from the vaccine or other infections, more people are getting the flu, he explained.

Approximately 90% of flu-related deaths and flu-related hospitalizations are seen in people 65 and older.

While the Trump administration no longer recommends flu shots or other types of vaccines for all children, many health experts are standing by the long-held protocol in this country in favor of vaccines.

“It’s not too late to get the flu vaccine,” Goldman said. “We would recommend the flu shot for everyone. We strongly recommend it for people above the age of 65 and those with pre-existing conditions. And given that the flu season this year is more severe, we’re strongly recommending that if you have not gotten the flu shot yet, you should get it.”

Early data show this year’s flu vaccine is effective at reducing influenza-related emergency department visits and hospital admissions, officials from the state Department of Health said.

“Public health experts consistently state that the vaccine still provides strong protection against severe illness,” department officials said in an email.

How can you tell if what you have is the flu or Covid? There really is only one sure way to determine. That’s because both the flu and Covid can induce coughs, shortness of breath, fatigue, runny noses, head and body pains, sore throats and gastrointestinal issues, according to the National Institutes of Health.

The onset of symptoms may provide a key differentiator. Covid often comes on gradually; while with the flu, people frequently describe feeling like they’ve suddenly been “hit by a dump truck,” Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, an infectious disease specialist at the University of California, San Francisco, told The New York Times.

The only sure way to discern one from the other is to test.

Advice from the doctor

If you are feeling under the weather, stay home.

“We all know people who are sneezing, coughing. They look like they have the flu. Stay away from those people,” Goldman said. “Don’t invite them to dinner. If you yourself are sick, then we do recommend that you stay home from work, you stay home from school, and, you know, if you have elderly parents, for example, you don’t go visit them. If you’re young and healthy, getting the flu may not be a big deal for you. On the other hand, if you give it to your elderly parents or elderly grandparents, it may be a big deal for them.”

Is going to the ER the right decision? Goldman’s advice for young and/or healthy people is to stay home; maybe check in with their doctor. People older than 65 should seek medical attention and possibly anti-viral medicines such as Tamiflu.

Older people should also get tested to ensure it’s not Covid or Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), a common respiratory virus that can be serious for infants, older adults and adults with chronic medical conditions.

Goldman said he is not recommending that people wear masks.

To date, most hospitals are urgent care facilties in central Pennsylvania are not requiring people to mask, although many have signs posted that anyone with an active cough should mask up.

While at the ER last Friday, the McPartlands erred on the side of caution.

“We immediately grabbed masks that they had available and put them on, but hardly anybody was wearing them,” Jeff McPartland said.

He reports that his wife, who was admitted, is much improved and that he is pleased with the care she is getting at UPMC West Shore.

“I mean, she’s not out of the woods by any means, but, yeah, they’re taking excellent care of her,” he said.