The 2024-25 flu season in San Diego County was one of the most severe in a decade for hospitalizations and deaths, according to local health officials.

As the county enters a new flu season on October, doctors are worried that the coming year could be just as bad, due in part to low and declining vaccination rates.

Last fiscal year, San Diego County recorded nearly 40,000 cases of the flu, while the previous five years averaged slightly more than 13,000 cases a year. These numbers come from the San Diego Epidemiology and Immunization Services branch of the county health department.

Unfortunately, the flu proved fatal for some of those people in the past year: 220 county residents died of the flu, compared with 63 deaths the previous year. Of those 220 deaths, 7 of those fatalities were

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