2300 flu deaths in Texas

I was shocked by the size of that number, so I checked it out.  It seems to be legitimate.  It came originally from the department of health.

I can't find a figure from last season to compare it to.  Out of a population of 28 million that is a death rate of about 1.2 deaths per thousand, but the flu season is still ongoing!

This is not a moment to panic, but it does seem unusually severe.

I suspect what we're seeing is a combination of a particularly virulent novel strain and a poorly matched vaccine. It's clearly hitting some communities particularly hard, although from a personal standpoint I'm not seeing much in the way of serious illness here, even in my patients (who tend to be immune compromised). A few of my coworkers have been sick, but in most cases it seems to manifest itself as a bad cough that takes a few weeks to clear up completely. Hopefully this isn't the early stages of a virus building itself into something bigger.