Science
California braces for early, sharper flu season as virus mutation outpaces vaccine, experts say
California could see an early start to the annual flu season, as a combination of low vaccination rates and late mutations to the virus may leave the state particularly exposed to transmission, health experts say.
Already, there are warning signs. Los Angeles County recently reported its first flu death of the season, and other nations are reporting record-breaking or powerful, earlier-than-expected flu seasons.
Typically, flu picks up right after Christmas and into the New Year, but Dr. Elizabeth Hudson, regional physician chief of infectious diseases at Kaiser Permanente Southern California, said she expects increases in viral activity perhaps over the next two to three weeks.
“We’re expecting an early and likely sharp start to the flu season,” Hudson said.
Last year’s flu season was the worst California had seen in years, and it’s not usual for there to be back-to-back bad flu seasons. But a combination of a decline in flu vaccination rates and a “souped-up mutant” is particularly concerning this year, according to Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, an infectious diseases expert at UC San Francisco.
“That may translate into more people getting infected. And as more people get infected, a proportion of them will go to the hospital,” Chin-Hong said.
The timing of this new flu subvariant — called H3N2 subclade K — is particularly problematic. It emerged toward the end of the summer, long after health officials had already determined how to formulate this fall’s flu vaccine, a decision that had to be made in February.
H3N2 subclade K seems to be starting to dominate in Japan and Britain, Hudson said.
“It looks like a bit of a mismatch between the seasonal flu vaccine strains” and the new subvariant, Hudson said.
It remains unclear whether subclade K will reduce the effectiveness of this year’s flu shot.
In California and the rest of the U.S., “things are quiet, but I think it’s just a calm before the storm,” Chin-Hong said. “From what we see in the U.K. and Japan, a lot more people are getting flu earlier.”
Chin-Hong noted that subclade K is not that much different than the strains this year’s flu vaccines were designed against. And he noted data recently released in Britain that showed this season’s vaccines were still effective against hospitalization.
According to the British government, vaccinated children were 70% to 75% less likely to need hospital care, and adults were 30% to 40% less likely. Flu vaccine effectiveness is typically between 30% to 60%, and tends to be more effective in younger people, the British government said.
Even if there is some degree of mismatch between the vaccine and circulating strains, “the flu vaccine still provides protection against severe illness, including hospitalizations,” according to the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health.
“Public Health strongly encourages everyone who has not received the flu vaccine yet this year to receive it now, especially before gathering with loved ones during the holidays,” the department said in a statement.
But “while mismatched vaccines may still provide protection, enhanced genetic, antigenic and epidemiological … monitoring are warranted to inform risk assessment and response,” according to scientists writing in the Journal of the Assn. of Medical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases Canada.
Because the vaccine is not a perfect match for the latest mutated flu strain, Chin-Hong said getting antiviral medication like Tamiflu to infected patients may be especially important this year, even for those who are vaccinated. That’s especially true for the most vulnerable, which include the very young and very old.
“But that means you need to get diagnosed earlier,” Chin-Hong said. Drugs like Tamiflu work best when started within one to two days after flu symptoms begin, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says.
There are now at-home flu testing kits that are widely available for sale for people who are showing signs of illness.
Also worrying is how the flu has surged in other countries.
Australia’s flu season came earlier this year and was more severe than usual. The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners said that nation saw a record flu season, with more than 410,000 lab-confirmed cases, up from the prior all-time high of 365,000 that were reported last year.
“This is not a record we want to be breaking,” Dr. Michael Wright, president of the physician’s group, said.
Hudson noted Australia’s flu season was “particularly hard on children” this year.
L.A. County health officials cautioned that Australia’s experience isn’t a solid predictor of what happens locally.
“It is difficult to predict what will happen in the United States and Los Angeles, as the severity of the flu season depends on multiple factors including circulating strains, pre-existing immunity, vaccine uptake, and the overall health of the population,” the L.A. County Department of Public Health said.
The new strain has also thrown a wrench in things. As Australia’s flu season was ending, “this new mutation came up, which kind of ignited flu in Japan and the U.K., and other parts of Europe and Asia,” Chin-Hong said.
On Friday, Japan reportedly issued a national alert with flu cases surging and hospitalizations increasing, especially among children and the elderly, accompanied by a sharp rise in school and class closures. The Japanese newspaper Asahi Shimbun said children ages 1 through 9 and adults 80 and up were among the hardest-hit groups.
Taiwanese health officials warned of the possibility of a second peak in flu this year, according to the Central News Agency. There was already a peak in late September and early October — a month earlier than normal — and officials are warning about an uptick in flu cases starting in December and then peaking around the Lunar New Year on Feb. 17.
Taiwanese officials said 95% of patients with severe flu symptoms had not been recently vaccinated.
British health officials this month issued a “flu jab SOS,” as an early wave struck the nation. Flu cases are “already triple what they were this time last year,” Public Health Minister Ashley Dalton said in a statement.
In England, outside of pandemic years, this fall marked the earliest start to the flu season since 2003-04, scientists said in the journal Eurosurveillance.
“We have to brace ourselves for another year of more cases of flu,” Chin-Hong said.
One major concern has been declining flu vaccination rates — a trend seen in both Australia and the United States.
In Australia, only 25.7% of children age 6 months to 5 years were vaccinated against flu in 2025, the lowest rate since 2021. Among seniors age 65 and up, 60.5% were vaccinated, the lowest rate since 2020.
Australian health officials are promoting free flu vaccinations for children that don’t require an injection, but are administered by nasal spray.
“We must boost vaccination rates,” Wright said.
In the U.S., officials recommend the annual flu vaccine for everyone age 6 months and up. Those age 65 and up are eligible for a higher-dose version, and kids and adults between age 2 and age 49 are eligible to get vaccinated via the FluMist nasal spray, rather than a needle injection.
Officials this year began allowing people to order FluMist to be mailed to them at home.
Besides getting vaccinated, other ways to protect yourself against the flu include washing your hands frequently, avoiding sick people and wearing a mask in higher-risk indoor settings, such as while in the airport and on a plane.
Healthy high-risk people, such as older individuals, can be prescribed antiviral drugs like Tamiflu if another household member has the flu, Chin-Hong said.
Doctors are especially concerned about babies, toddlers and young children up to age 5.
“Those are the kids that are the most vulnerable if they get any kind of a respiratory illness. It can really go badly for them, and they can end up extraordinarily ill,” Hudson said.
In the United States, just 49.2% of children had gotten a flu shot as of late April, lower than the 53.4% who had done so at the same point the previous season, according to preliminary national survey results. Both figures are well below the final flu vaccination rate for eligible children during the 2019-20 season, which was 63.7%.
Among adults, 46.7% had gotten their flu shot as of late April, slightly down from the 47.4% at the same point last season, according to the preliminary survey results, which are the most recent data available.
“Before the COVID-19 pandemic, flu vaccination coverage had been slowly increasing; downturns in coverage occurred during and after the pandemic. Flu vaccination levels have not rebounded to pre-pandemic levels,” according to the CDC.
The disparaging of vaccinations by federal health officials, led by the vaccine-skeptic secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has not helped improve immunization rates, health experts say. Kennedy told the New York Times on Thursday that he personally directed the CDC to change its website to abandon its position that vaccines do not cause autism.
Mainstream health experts and former CDC officials denounced the change. “Extensive scientific evidence shows vaccines do not cause autism,” wrote Daniel Jernigan, Demetre Daskalakis and Debra Houry, all former top officials at the CDC, in an op-ed to MS NOW.
“CDC has been updated to cause chaos without scientific basis. Do not trust this agency,” Daskalakis, former director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, added on social media. “This is a national embarrassment.”
State health officials from California, Washington, Oregon and Hawaii on Friday called the new claims on the CDC website inaccurate and said there are decades of “high quality evidence that vaccines are not linked to autism.”
“Over 40 high-quality studies involving more than 5.6 million children have found no link between any routine childhood vaccine and autism,” the L.A. County Department of Public Health said Friday. “The increase in autism diagnoses reflects improved screening, broader diagnostic criteria, and greater awareness, not a link to vaccines.”
Hudson said it’s important to get evidence-based information on the flu vaccines.
“Vaccines save lives. The flu vaccine in particular saves lives,” Hudson said.
Our universe might be chock-full of cosmic wonder, but you can observe only a fraction of astronomical phenomena with the naked eye. Meteor showers, natural fireworks that streak brightly across the night sky, are one of them.
The latest observable meteor shower will be the Lyrids, which has been active since April 14 and is forecast to continue through April 30. The shower reaches its peak April 21 to 22, or Tuesday night into Wednesday morning.
According to NASA, the Lyrids are one of the oldest known meteor showers, and have been enjoyed by stargazers for nearly 3,000 years. Their bright, speedy streaks are caused by the dusty debris from a comet named Thatcher. They appear to spring from the constellation Lyra, which right now can be seen in the eastern sky at night in the Northern Hemisphere.
The moon will be about 27 percent full tonight, appearing as a thick crescent in the sky, according to the American Meteor Society.
To get a hint at when to best watch for the Lyrids, you can use this tool, which relies on data from the Global Meteor Network. It shows fireball activity levels in real time.
And while you gaze at the heavens, keep an eye out for other stray meteors streaking across the night sky. Skywatchers are reporting that the amount of fireballs is double what is usually seen by this point in the year.
Where meteor showers come from
There is a chance you might see a meteor on any given night, but you are most likely to catch one during a shower. Meteor showers are caused by Earth passing through the rubble trailing a comet or asteroid as it swings around the sun. This debris, which can be as small as a grain of sand, leaves behind a glowing stream of light as it burns up in Earth’s atmosphere.
Meteor showers occur around the same time every year and can last for days or weeks. But there is only a small window when each shower is at its peak, which happens when Earth reaches the densest part of the cosmic debris. The peak is the best time to look for a shower. From our point of view on Earth, the meteors will appear to come from the same point in the sky.
The Perseid meteor shower, for example, peaks in mid-August from the constellation Perseus. The Geminids, which occur every December, radiate from the constellation Gemini.
How to watch a meteor shower
Michelle Nichols, the director of public observing at the Adler Planetarium in Chicago, recommends forgoing the use of telescopes or binoculars while watching a meteor shower.
“You just need your eyes and, ideally, a dark sky,” she said.
That’s because meteors can shoot across large swaths of the sky, so observing equipment can limit your field of view.
Some showers are strong enough to produce up to 100 streaks an hour, according to the American Meteor Society, though you probably won’t see that many.
“Almost everybody is under a light-polluted sky,” Ms. Nichols said. “You may think you’re under a dark sky, but in reality, even in a small town, you can have bright lights nearby.”
Planetariums, local astronomy clubs or even maps like this one can help you figure out where to go to escape excessive light. The best conditions for catching a meteor shower are a clear sky with no moon or cloud cover, sometime between midnight and sunrise. (Moonlight affects visibility in the same way as light pollution, washing out fainter sources of light in the sky.) Make sure to give your eyes at least 30 minutes to adjust to seeing in the dark.
Ms. Nichols also recommends wearing layers, even during the summer. “You’re going to be sitting there for quite a while, watching,” she said. “It’s going to get chilly, even in August.”
Bring a cup of cocoa or tea for even more warmth. Then lie back, scan the sky and enjoy the show.
Where weather is least likely to affect your view
Storm systems sweep across the country in early spring, and some will be obscuring skies tonight. But there will still be plenty of areas with clear skies, particularly in parts of the central United States.
“The best spot is going to be in the Upper Midwest,” said Rich Bann, a meteorologist with the Weather Prediction Center.
Minnesota, Wisconsin and Iowa will offer especially good sky-viewing weather and a beach on the Great Lakes could be a nice spot to look up at the stars.
But don’t expect to view the show from Chicago, as Illinois could see some thunderstorms. The weather will be better in the Northern and Central Plains, particularly the eastern Dakotas.
High, wispy clouds are expected over the Ohio and Tennessee Valleys and into parts of the Mid-Atlantic. But, Mr. Bann said, “you may be able to see some shooting stars through thin clouds.”
Clouds will be draped across much of the Southeast and the Northeast, though there could be some clearing in Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas and Virginia. Remember, the meteors could be visible all night long. If you look outside and see clouds, try again later.
Catching the spectacle will be challenging across much of the West, particularly from Washington into Northern California, where a storm system is bringing rain and snow. That system will move east overnight.
There are likely to be some pockets of clear skies at times across southern Nevada, northwest Arizona and southwest Utah, Mr. Bann said.
Amy Graff contributed reporting.
WASHINGTON — Amid growing national security concerns, the FBI said Tuesday that it has launched a broad investigation in the deaths or disappearances of at least 10 scientists and staff connected to highly sensitive research, including four from the Los Angeles area.
“The FBI is spearheading the effort to look for connections into the missing and deceased scientists. We are working with the Department of Energy, Department of War, and with our state and state and local law enforcement partners to find answers,” the agency said in a statement.
The FBI’s announcement comes after the House Oversight Committee announced that it would investigate reports of the disappearance and deaths of the scientists, sending letters seeking information from the agencies involved in the federal inquiry as well as NASA, which owns the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Cañada Flintridge, where three of the missing or dead scientists worked.
“If the reports are accurate, these deaths and disappearances may represent a grave threat to U.S. national security and to U.S. personnel with access to scientific secrets,” Reps. James Comer (R-Ky.), chairman of the committee, and Eric Burlison (R-Mo.) wrote in the letters.
President Trump told reporters last week that he had been briefed on the missing and dead scientists, which he described as “pretty serious stuff.” He said at the time that he expected answers on whether the deaths were connected “in the next week and a half.”
Michael David Hicks, who studied comets and asteroids at JPL, was the first of the scientists who disappeared or died. He died on July 30, 2023, at the age of 59. No cause of death was disclosed.
A year later, JPL physicist Frank Maiwald died at 61, with no cause of death disclosed.
Two other Los Angeles scientists are part of the string of deaths and disappearances.
On June 22, 2025, Monica Jacinto Reza, a materials scientist at JPL, disappeared while on a hike near Mt. Waterman in the San Gabriel Mountains.
On Feb. 16, Caltech astrophysicist Carl Grillmair was fatally shot on the porch of his Llano home. The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s department arrested Freddy Snyder, 29, in connection with the shooting. Snyder had been arrested in December on suspicion of trespassing on Grillmair’s property.
Snyder has been charged with murder.
There is no evidence at this point that the deaths and disappearances, which occurred over a span of four years, are connected.
A spokesperson for NASA, which owns JPL, said in a statement on X that the agency is “coordinating and cooperating with the relevant agencies in relation to the missing scientists.
“At this time, nothing related to NASA indicates a national security threat,” agency spokesperson Bethany Stevens wrote. “The agency is committed to transparency and will provide more information as able.”
Representatives from Caltech, which manages JPL, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The sun had barely risen over the Pacific Ocean when a small motorboat carrying a team of Indigenous artisans and Mexican biologists dropped anchor in a rocky cove near Bahías de Huatulco.
Mauro Habacuc Avendaño Luis, one of the craftsmen, was the first to wade to shore. With an agility belying his age, he struck out over the boulders exposed by low tide. Crouching on a slippery ledge pounded by surf, he reached inside a crevice between two rocks. There, lodged among the urchins, was a snail with a knobby gray shell the size of a walnut. The sight might not dazzle tourists who travel here to see humpback whales, but for Mr. Avendaño, 85, these drab little mollusks represent a way of life.
Marine snails in the genus Plicopurpura are sacred to the Mixtec people of Pinotepa de Don Luis, a small town in southwestern Oaxaca. Men like Mr. Avendaño have been sustainably “milking” them for radiant purple dye for at least 1,500 years. The color suffuses Mixtec textiles and spiritual beliefs. Called tixinda, it symbolizes fertility and death, as well as mythic ties between lunar cycles, women and the sea.
The future of these traditions — and the fate of the snails — are uncertain. The mollusks are subject to intense poaching pressure despite federal protections intended to protect them. Fishermen break them (and the other mollusks they eat) open and sell the meat to local restaurants. Tourists who comb the beaches pluck snails off the rocks and toss them aside.
A severe earthquake in 2020 thrust formerly submerged parts of their habitat above sea level, fatally tossing other mollusks in the snail’s food web to the air, and making once inaccessible places more available to poachers.
Decades ago, dense clusters of snails the size of doorknobs were easy to find, according to Mr. Avendaño. “Full of snails,” he said, sweeping a calloused, violet-stained hand across the coves. Now, most of the snails he finds are small, just over an inch, and yield only a few milliliters of dye.
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