Flu season mangles Kansans’ health. I didn’t get vaccinated, and the virus tore me limb from limb.

Flu vaccines, even though they might not exactly match the circulating strains, still offer protection against severe illness and hospitalization. (Getty Images)

I overlooked my flu shot this winter. Over the Christmas holiday, I paid the price.

My entire family was felled by the flu. I’m not talking about cold-like symptoms for a couple of days. I’m talking about total immobilization, hacking coughs and fevers above 102 F. It was misery. We had to cancel family celebrations on Dec. 25, reconvening a couple of days later.

Even after the worst of the illness had passed, we all spent a second week working through fatigue, coughing fits and brain fog.

Data from Kansas and across these United States shows that we were far from alone. Information from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for the week ending Dec. 27 shows influenza at a “very high” level in the state. The Kansas Department of Health and Environment reports 424 deaths this flu season from respiratory viruses, after 1,482 deaths the previous season.

Nationally, at least 5,000 have died this flu season, with nine of those deaths among children, according to the CDC.

“There’s no doubt about it,” said Michael Phillips of the NYU Grossman School of Medicine to NBC’s Today. “It’s an unusual season. It’s been severe, with a rapid onset.”

The tidal wave of infection bore down even as I wrote this column. Wednesday evening, the University of Kansas Health System revealed that more than 100 patients had been hospitalized with both the flu and similar illnesses.

So yes, you can count this one as the real deal. After years of grappling with COVID-19 and respiratory syncytial virus (known as RSV), it might sound comforting to confront the familiar old flu. But this variant, identified as subclade K of the H3N2 variety, has torn through the world. Over in the United Kingdom, the ever-sedate press has dubbed it the “super flu.”

So we’ve established that it’s a problem. What should you do about it? What should my family and I have done?

First and most importantly, we should have been vaccinated. While this season’s vaccine doesn’t specifically protect against subclade K, evidence suggests it protects against severe illness. The more people get vaccinated, of course, the greater protection against illness across the community.

We couldn’t have elevated Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at a worse time. He has overseen this week’s evisceration of the childhood vaccine schedule, in which officials no longer recommend protecting kids against hepatitis A, hepatitis B, influenza, meningitis, respiratory syncytial virus and rotavirus.

Children will die. They already have, this flu season. When ideology trumps public health or common sense, no one bothers much about the corpses of defenseless kids.

But I digress.

All the measures promoted by public health officials during the COVID-19 pandemic remain sensible. Wear a mask to protect both you and others. Wash your hands. Stay at home if you become sick. Don’t force yourself to work or otherwise exert yourself while feeling ill. Rest, drink plenty of fluids and contact health care professionals as needed.

“When you can test early, and if you find out that you have influenza, there is an antiviral that we use to treat that, will help reduce your chance of complications,” said the University of Kansas Medical Center’s Dana Hawkinson in an interview with KSHB-TV.

Back in the darkest days of the pandemic, many of us hoped for more.

Back then, folks who care about the well-being of other Kansans imagined that we might begin a new era, one in which officials supported public health and reliable science. Millions of lives could be saved over the years as we prioritized vaccinations and looked out for one another.

Instead, antiscience and antisocial ideologues exploited public fear for personal gain. They promoted snake oil cures instead of actual medicine. They spread conspiracy theories about lifesaving vaccines. They promoted the fallacious idea that individual liberty meant the right to infect and kill your loved ones.

They got the better of the argument. Scientists and politicians too often stumbled in those fast-moving early days, opening the door for Kennedy and his fellow charlatans to prance through merrily.

Now we all pay for that freedom. Those 5,000 Americans and nine children have paid for our right to cough in public, to turn up our noses at shots, to vote for a would-be autocrat who gives the best medical care to his friends while tossing millions off Medicaid. I’m sure they would all eagerly support that bargain if they could speak to us now.

Again, I digress. But not really.

Let this flu season serve as a reminder that respiratory viruses crash the party every winter, whether you acknowledge them or not. When a particularly virulent variant comes to town, it doesn’t care how tough you act or how much you hate doctors and nurses.

It will lay you out flat and make you beg for mercy.

Clay Wirestone is Kansas Reflector opinion editor. Through its opinion section, Kansas Reflector works to amplify the voices of people who are affected by public policies or excluded from public debate. Find information, including how to submit your own commentary, here.