New York reports record-breaking number of flu hospitalizations in a single week
Stock photo of a sick child. (Natalia Lebedinskaia/STOCK PHOTO/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — New York is reporting the highest number of flu hospitalizations recorded in a single week, the state’s health department said on Friday.
During the week ending Dec. 27, 4,546 people were hospitalized with flu, a 24% increase from the 3,666 who were hospitalized the previous week, according to data from the New York State Department of Health (NYSOH)
It comes after the state reported a record-breaking number of flu cases in a single week with 72,133 infections during the week ending Dec. 20.
NYSDOH issued a declaration last month stating influenza is prevalent in New York, which requires health care facilities and agencies to ensure any staff who have not received this year’s flu vaccine wear masks in any areas where patients and residents may be present.
“We are having a more severe flu season than prior years, almost 1,000 more people were admitted to a hospital during this most recent seven-day period compared to the prior week,” Dr. James McDonald, the state’s health commissioner, said in a statement on Friday.
Meanwhile, flu activity is also spiking nationwide. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates there have been at least 7.5 million illnesses, 81,000 hospitalizations and 3,100 deaths from flu so far this season.
New York is one of 20 states recording “very high” levels of respiratory illness activity, according to the latest CDC data.
Public health experts previously told ABC News that many of this season’s cases are linked to a new flu strain called subclade K — a variant of the H3N2 virus, which is itself a subtype of influenza A.
Subclade K has been circulating since the summer in other countries and was a main driver of a spike in flu cases in Canada, Japan and the U.K.
Of the 1,600 flu samples tested by the CDC, roughly 92% were H3N2. Of those samples, nearly 90% belonged to subclade K.
Experts expect flu-like illnesses to continue to climb in the coming weeks after holiday gatherings and colder weather.
Currently, the CDC recommends that everyone aged 6 months and older, with rare exceptions, get a flu vaccine.
The federal health agency states on its website that getting an annual flu shot prevents millions of illnesses and flu-related doctors’ visits every year and is especially important for those at higher risk of serious complications.
The flu vaccine is currently available to New Yorkers aged 2 years and older at a health care provider’s office or at participating pharmacies while children aged 6 months and older can receive the flu vaccine at a health care provider’s office, according to the state health department.
“There is still time to get a flu shot and remember, flu can be treated with antiviral medication if started within 48 hours of symptom onset and your doctor deems appropriate,” McDonald said.
ABC News’ Youri Benadjaoud contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — Over the last week, Martina Santos said she feels like she’s been living a nightmare.
The 67-year-old from the Bronx, New York, is one of the nearly 42 million Americans who saw their Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits lapse on Nov. 1.
Although the U.S. Department of Agriculture said it would partially fund the program using emergency funds, officials said it could take “a few weeks to up to several months.” Additionally, President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that no benefits will be distributed until the government reopens.
The uncertainty of if or when SNAP benefits will be funded is leaving many Americans, like Santos, wondering whether she is going to pay rent, pay her bills or buy food.
“This is crazy. I’m nervous … thinking about how I can get the money to buy what I need right now, because I don’t have food stamps,” she told ABC News. “I need to make a decision if I pay my rent, when I pay my electricity or I buy food. It’s not easy.”
Santos, who volunteers at the nonprofit West Side Campaign Against Hunger, said she is asking her landlord if it’s possible to make a partial payment for the month of November.
She added that she’s going to a pantry this week because she doesn’t have much food in her house besides packets of beans and cereal, along with a gallon of milk her son bought for her.
In addition to food, Santos said the loss of benefits is particularly devastating because she uses them to purchase distilled water for her CPAP machine, which helps treat sleep apnea and, in turn, her high blood pressure.
“When I don’t use the machine, by the next day, I [wake] up tired, I don’t want to do anything, because I don’t sleep [well],” she said. “I want to wake up. How can I get out of this nightmare right now?”
Domestic violence survivors impacted by loss of SNAP benefits
Nicole, 42, from Long Island, New York — who asked that her last name not be used — started receiving SNAP benefits in 2024 after leaving a domestic violence situation.
She receives about $994 in SNAP benefits per month to help buy groceries for her and her three children — ages 12, 13 and 17 — which she said is a struggle.
“Food is so expensive right now. So, when you go into stores and you’re buying and trying to budget and save, it’s just not enough,” she told ABC News. “That’s the feeling that I get when I go food shopping. I’m a budget shopper. I try to look out for deals that they’re having and just stock up and be a bulk shopper.”
Nicole said she receives cash assistance and help from family, which has helped cover the cost of some groceries in the wake of SNAP benefits being halted, but added she has been occasionally checking her mobile app to see if the EBT card balance is still $0.
“I’ve been checking periodically just to see if it’s going to say that food stamps are going to be available. I just still have this little hope in praying that it will be there,” she said. “And I was thinking to myself today, like, ‘How long do you think it’s gonna go and thank God we’re getting the cash assistance and some people they just don’t have it. They just don’t have family.'”
She said she thinks this situation is going to last for a couple of months and said she is using this as motivation to hopefully get off of SNAP benefits for good.
Nicole Branca, CEO of New Destiny Housing, a nonprofit that provides housing to domestic violence survivors and their children, said 70% survivors that the organization serves receive SNAP benefits.
She said the loss of benefits can compound the physical and mental health struggles that many survivors already experience.
“Domestic violence survivors are particularly harmed by this loss of SNAP benefits because of the economic abuse that they’ve experienced,” she said. “Nearly 100% of DV survivors experience financial abuse as part of the abuse, so that means their abuser restricted their access to bank accounts, ruined their credit and didn’t allow them access to their own paycheck. And so we work with them to start from scratch.”
Branca continued, “It’s so hard to find the words to describe how devastating this is for our families, who are just starting to recover financially, emotionally, physically and the thought of not being able to pay for food on the table for their kids or having to decide between food and rent. It’s really taking a toll on our families.”
‘Anxious and concerned’
Elayne Masters, 68, from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, started receiving SNAP benefits in 2017 after suffering a traumatic brain injury following a fall down a flight of stairs.
In addition to her injury, Masters also suffers from hypothyroidism, which occurs when the thyroid gland doesn’t make and release enough thyroid hormone in the bloodstream, as well as Lyme disease, an inflammatory illness usually caused by an infected tick bite.
Masters typically receives about $250 in SNAP benefits, saying it allows her to buy healthy foods that help improve symptoms like brain fog, fatigue, confusion and joint pain.
She said her various conditions are improved by a healthy diet, and she’s worried that she won’t be able to buy nutrient-dense food without SNAP benefits.
“Foods that are basically high amounts of produce, vegetables and fruits, help to decrease the problematic health symptoms that I have and when I’m eating a really healthy diet, I’m doing better, I’m seeing the doctor less frequently, I’m taking fewer medications. I’m more functioning,” she told ABC News.
“And when I’m not able to pay for those healthy foods, my health declines, my cognitive functioning declines,” Masters went on. “If I weren’t able to maintain those healthy levels of eating, because it affects me so dramatically, so it’s a huge, huge difference in my quality of life and my ability to be a productive part of society as well.”
Masters said she went to a pantry last Wednesday and received a pre-packaged bag of food after attending a meeting at the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank.
She said she is “anxious and concerned” about being able to pay her electric bill, car insurance and house insurance within the next month.
“Winter is coming, and heating bills will be higher. If anything breaks down, I’m in trouble,” she said. “The holidays are coming, and I may not be able to finish gift shopping.”
In the past, to make ends meet, Masters said she has done things to stretch the shelf life of her food, such as cutting mold off a block of cheese, peeling the rotting layers of an onion to reach the layers that are still good or saving vegetable scraps to make her own broth.
“I’m starting to consider, okay, what kinds of things can I do that are going to help me stretch my dollars and some of the strategies that I’ve used in the past?” Masters said. “I may be able to skate through a month, but much beyond that, and it’s going to be difficult.”
(NEW YORK) — The global rise of ultra-processed foods in diets worldwide poses a major public health threat, according to experts who published a series of papers in medical journal The Lancet.
The authors cite studies that show ultra-processed diets are linked to chronic health conditions like increased risk of becoming overweight and obesity, type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, chronic kidney disease and overall higher death rates.
Common examples of ultra-processed foods include sugar-sweetened beverages, packaged snacks, instant soups, breakfast cereals, energy bars, mass-produced packaged breads, ready-to-eat meals, ice cream and pizza.
ABC News’ medical correspondent Dr. Darien Sutton investigated the state of America’s food supply including the consumption of ultra-processed foods and the potential risks to Americans’ health in a new “ABC News Live Prime” special “Gut Check: The Foods We Eat.”
Watch the segment on ABC News Live Prime on Wednesday, Nov. 19, at 8:30 p.m. ET. Available to stream on Disney+ and Hulu.
Sutton participated in an experiment at a high-tech laboratory at Virginia Tech where researchers monitored his blood work before and after eating ultra-processed foods. He also visited an American grocery store, comparing the ingredient lists of common food products with similar ones overseas in a French grocery store.
The special also takes viewers to the world’s largest food and science exposition in Chicago, where ingredient makers pitch food companies on their latest innovations. It’s a notable time for the industry, as the Trump administration continues to push food companies to remove additives, like synthetic dyes, from their products.
The warning around the dangers of ultra-processed foods comes as the Make America Health Again (MAHA) movement, popularized by health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., grows nationwide.
About four in 10 parents consider themselves supporters of the MAHA movement, with support higher among Republicans and white parents, a Washington Post-KFF poll finds.
An overwhelming number of parents, regardless of their support of the MAHA movement, supported increased government regulations on dyes and chemical additives, highly processed foods and added sugars, the poll found.
The authors of The Lancet paper, which was published on Tuesday, note that improving diets requires more than just a change in behavior.
Instead, they are calling for world policy reform with actions targeting the production, marketing and consumption of ultra-processed foods, as well as improving access to health food is needed, they note.
Americans consume over half of their daily calories from ultra-processed foods, on average, according to a study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Healthier eating should emphasize fruits, vegetables, whole grains, dairy and protein, the CDC says. Most Americans need to increase their intake of dietary fiber, calcium, vitamin D, and potassium, the agency notes.
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(NEW YORK) — Health officials in Los Angeles County said on Friday they are investigating a possible local spread of a more severe strain of mpox.
Two cases of the strain were identified among Los Angeles County residents with no recent travel history.
It comes after the first U.S. case of the more severe strain of mpox without known travel was identified in a patient from Long Beach, California, bringing the total number of cases in the state to three.
No clear link has been identified between the Los Angeles cases and the Long Beach case, according to Los Angeles County health officials.
“The confirmation of a third case with no travel history raises concerns about possible local spread in Los Angeles County,” Dr. Muntu Davis, Los Angeles County health officer, said in a press release. “We’re working closely with our partners to identify potential sources and understand how this potentially more serious type of the mpox virus may be spreading.”
There are two types of the virus that cause mpox: clade I and clade II, with clade roughly meaning they are descended from a common ancestor organism. Clade I has historically been associated with severe illness and death, and is endemic to parts of central and western Africa, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Clade II was responsible for a large outbreak that peaked in summer 2022, leading to more than 100,000 cases in 122 countries, including more than 30,000 cases in the U.S.
The less severe strain in the U.S. has continued circulating at low levels and has remained relatively stable.
Parts of Africa have been dealing with sustained person-to-person spread of the more severe strain of mpox. All six previously confirmed cases of the more severe strain in the U.S. have been among people who had recently traveled to areas associated with the outbreak in central and eastern Africa, according to the CDC.
In November 2024, California reported the first domestic case of the more severe strain in a traveler from Africa who experienced mild illness.
People with mpox, which was formerly known as monkeypox, often get a rash that can be located on hands, feet, chest, face, mouth or near the genitals, the CDC said.
Most people with mpox typically recover within two to four weeks without specific treatments.
Currently, the JYNNEOS vaccine, a two-dose vaccine approved by the Food and Drug Administration to prevent smallpox and mpox, is the only vaccine being used in the U.S.
The JYNNEOS vaccine is recommended for adults at high risk for mpox, which includes people who are gay, bisexual or other men who have sex with men and have recent or upcoming risk factors like multiple sexual partners, intimate contact with someone who may have mpox, or sex at commercial venues.
ABC News’ Mary Kekatos contributed to this report.
