Flu season is returning to the United States this year. Here’s what we know:
Health experts say the flu could return this season after a two-year hiatus. Here’s why the number of influenza cases may increase in the United States.
America today, America today
Destiny Mojica always had a smile on her face. She loved baking, loved animals, and was often seen with her makeup and nails done to perfection. She is shy at first, but she likes helping people, and once you get to know her, her bright personality shines through.
Destiny was a “healthy, loving, active 16-year-old,” her aunt Yesenia Mojica-Santillan told USA TODAY.
When Destiny developed a cough and stuffy nose in December 2024, her family paid little attention to it. She was a typical teenager and it wasn’t unusual for her to catch a cold in the winter.
But after a few weeks, more symptoms appeared. She felt weak, light-headed, and her face was swollen. It was the flu that ultimately claimed Destiny’s life several months later in May 2025.
Now, her family and other parents who lost healthy children to the flu are sharing their stories in hopes of warning others as flu cases surge this season. The current influenza epidemic has resulted in record numbers of hospitalizations and thousands of deaths, including at least 32 pediatric deaths. Last year, the number of child deaths reached nearly 300.
“Influenza is not ‘just the flu.’ It is a serious and sometimes deadly virus,” Mojica-Santillan said. “I saw my niece suffer from complications of the flu, something many people ignore or underestimate.”
“Our family will never be the same”
Mojica-Santillan said that before her niece became ill, she didn’t realize how quickly flu complications can develop or how unpredictable they are, and how a trip to the emergency room with Destiny after feeling dizzy sparked a months-long battle with the virus.
“The next thing we knew, her heart started failing and she was being taken to a local children’s hospital,” Mojica Santillan said.
She went into cardiac arrest at the children’s hospital. It took 45 minutes for her heartbeat to return.
Over the next five months, Mojica-Santillan watched her niece suffer multiple organ failure, face multiple infections, be repeatedly intubated and put on a heart and lung bypass machine in an effort to keep her alive.
“Even as a registered nurse, I had never seen anyone so sick with the flu,” Mojica Santillan said.
After receiving a heart and kidney transplant in March, Destiny’s family was given new hope for recovery.
“I hope she heals, grows, laughs and dreams like every teenager deserves,” Mojica-Santillan said.
But the opposite happened. She then developed a severe lung infection and was unable to undergo a transplant due to her weak constitution.
“In May we were told that there was nothing more we could do. On May 18, we said goodbye to our fate surrounded by love,” Mojica-Santillan said. “Our family will never be the same.”
From headaches to hematemesis to cardiac arrest
Blake Crane was a healthy, active 16-year-old who died in 2020 from complications from the flu.
He has a passion for baseball and played on the team during his summers throughout high school. He also loved music, played trumpet in the school band, and was often found with a book (or two) in his hands.
“I just thought elderly people died from the flu. That was my understanding. I knew people died from the flu, but I thought it was frail elderly people,” Blake’s mother, Becky Crane, told USA TODAY, adding that she never expected something like that to happen to a healthy child like her son.
Blake’s family had planned a weekend snowboarding trip, but Blake was sent home from school on Friday complaining of a headache. The next afternoon, while traveling with his family, he woke up with a severe sore throat. After a strep test at an out-of-town emergency room came back negative, his family was told to take him home and keep him rested and hydrated.
After a night of NyQuil and Gatorade at a motel, the family returned home to watch over the boy, who was sick in his sleep.
When I got home on Sunday, I started vomiting and it turned bright red.
“At first I didn’t know if it was red because of the NyQuil or because of the blood. When I thought it was blood, I knew it wasn’t normal,” Crane said.
They rushed him to the ER, where he struggled to register his oximeter on his finger as his lips turned blue.
“That’s when the frenzy started,” she said, adding that tests showed his lungs were filling with blood and he was already in multisystem organ failure.
Less than four days after his first symptoms appeared, he died of cardiac arrest at 2 a.m.
“At one point, I heard influenza B mentioned, and I literally thought it must be some weird strain, because it didn’t match my understanding of why we were here and why my son got so sick,” she said, but confirmed it was just a normal strain.
Importance of influenza vaccine
In the years following their deaths, neither Destiny nor Blake had access to the flu vaccine.
Blake, who always had his annual vaccinations, started driving, making it difficult to accommodate his schedule, his mother explained.
“It wasn’t easy to take him to the doctor’s office one day after school,” Crane said. “I just didn’t do it because it wasn’t convenient.”
She now recalls the moment when the importance of vaccines was etched in her mind. When doctors came to tell him there was a good chance Blake wouldn’t survive, they asked if he had been vaccinated.
“I had to say no, and I had to say it directly: ‘If that’s the case, will he be okay?’ And she said, ‘There’s a chance he could be,'” Crane said, adding that she challenged the previous understanding that vaccination was “hit or miss” because it was possible to get the virus even after getting the shot.
“She taught me then that the flu shot can help (protect against) the severe symptoms we are facing,” she said. “People are still getting infected, but it would have been much worse if they hadn’t been vaccinated.”
Destiny was not eligible for the vaccine because she was already showing symptoms during her annual checkup, which is when she normally receives vaccinations.
Mojica Santillan admitted that even though she was a nurse who encouraged her patients to get the flu shot, she too had doubts about getting the flu shot.
“After experiencing mild side effects, I thought about the inconvenience rather than the big picture,” Mojica Santillan said. “When my family went through an unimaginable situation, it changed forever. No arm pain, no body pain, no temporary discomfort compared to the pain she endured and the pain our family lives with every day.”
Earlier this year, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced that it would overhaul its childhood immunization schedule and recommend four fewer vaccines, including influenza. The decision will now be based on shared decision-making between parents and health care providers, but it is not a complete recommendation and has been criticized by public health experts.
To raise more awareness, Crane and Mojica-Santillan are sharing the stories of their loved ones.
Crane also turned her grief into advocacy, organizing flu clinics and free flu shots for the community.
“We knew what happened with (Blake’s) last vaccination was just an inconvenience, so we wanted to make it easier for our family,” she said.
Although influenza deaths are considered rare, with about 200 childhood influenza deaths each year in the U.S., Crane cautions that flu spreads quickly and if you wait until you see serious side effects, it may be too late.
“Why take the risk?” she said. “Remember my story.”
