Health officials: Time to get flu vaccine

WASHINGTON -- The flu forecast is cloudy, and it's too soon to know whether the U.S. is in for a third miserable season in a row, but health officials said Thursday not to delay vaccination.

While the vaccine didn't offer much protection the past two years, specialists have fine-tuned the recipe in hopes it will better counter a nasty strain this time around.

"Getting vaccinated is going to be the best way to prevent whatever happens," Dr. Daniel Jernigan, flu chief at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told the Associated Press.

Last year's flu brought double trouble: A new strain started a second wave of illnesses just as the first was winding down, making for one of the longest influenza seasons on record. The year before marked flu's highest death toll in recent decades.

So far, it doesn't look like the flu season is getting an early start, Jernigan said. The CDC urges people to get their flu vaccine by the end of October. Typically flu starts widely circulating in November or December and peaks by February.

"Painless," Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar pronounced after getting his own flu shot at a news conference Thursday.

If people shrug at the risk, "it's not just about you," Azar said. "Vaccinating yourself may also protect people around you," such as how newborns have some flu protection if their mothers were vaccinated during pregnancy.

Scientists are hunting for better flu vaccines, and the Trump administration last week urged a renewed effort to modernize production. Most of today's vaccine is produced by growing flu virus in chicken eggs, a 70-year-old technology with some flaws. It takes too long to brew new doses if a surprise strain pops up. And intriguingly, newer production techniques just might boost effectiveness.

For now, people who get vaccinated and still get sick can expect a milder illness -- and a lower risk of pneumonia, hospitalization or death, stressed Dr. William Schaffner of Vanderbilt University and the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases.

He's been known to tell such patients, "I'm always glad to see you're still here to complain."