Every winter is a bit of a roulette wheel when it comes to influenza. Flu vaccines work, but aren’t 100% effective in preventing disease, so it’s always a challenge convincing people to get their flu shots. And while the symptoms are generally bearable, infections can become more severe and even deadly among people who are older or who have underlying health conditions. Last flu season, even though experts considered it a relatively mild year, about 400,000 people in the U.S. were hospitalized and 22,000 people died from the flu.
