Less than 40 percent of adults in the U.S. received a flu shot last year, marking the lowest vaccination rate since the 2010-11 flu season, according to CDC data released Oct. 25.
The CDC said 2017-18 vaccination coverage among adults was just 37.1 percent, down 6.2 percentage points from the previous season.
"That's huge. It's a striking inflection down from the previous year," said William Schaffner, MD, an infectious diseases expert at Nashville, Tenn.-based Vanderbilt University and medical director of the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases, told The Washington Post.
The CDC estimates 49 million Americans caught the flu last season, which caused about 960,000 hospitalizations and 79,000 deaths — the average number of people who attend the Super Bowl.
Decreased vaccination coverage among adults may have contributed to the severity of the 2017-18 flu season, Alicia Fry, MD, chief of epidemiology and prevention in the CDC's flu division, told The Washington Post.
The CDC recommends everyone ages 6 months and older receive a flu shot by the end of October.
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