The student news site of Mountlake Terrace High School in Mountlake Terrace, Washington.

The Hawkeye

The student news site of Mountlake Terrace High School in Mountlake Terrace, Washington.

The Hawkeye

The student news site of Mountlake Terrace High School in Mountlake Terrace, Washington.

The Hawkeye

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How to stay healthy during the attack of the flu season

By Olivia Driscoll

Health Editor

With flu season coming up it’s important to be prepared and keep yourself healthy.

According to the Centers for Disease Control every year between 5 and 20 percent of the population gets the flu.

There are different strains of flu, some worse than others. The flu usually isn’t serious for healthy people, but can become deadly.

Each year from 1976 to 2006, there were at least 3,000 and as many as 49,000 flu-related deaths in the U.S. alone, according to the CDC.

Flu season is regularly between the months of November and March.

January and February are the most active months when people get the flu. Influenza, commonly referred to as the flu, is an infectious disease cased by RNA viruses.

The flu is often mistaken for the common cold and gastroenteritis, commonly known as the stomach flu.

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The flu spreads from person to person, when an infected person sneezes or coughs and droplets from them spread to someone else. A person coughing into his or her hand and who then touches something, like a doorknob, can also spread the flu, if someone else touches that doorknob then their mouth, nose or eyes.

A very simple way to help stop the spread of the flu is to regularly wash your hands in warm soapy water for 60 to 90 seconds.

Symptoms of the flu vary from person to person, and can be mild or severe.

Fever, chills, coughing, sore throat, runny and congested noses, head and body aches, fatigue, vomiting and diarrhea are all symptoms a person may suffer if they are suffering from the flu.

The Centers for Disease Control recommends staying home for at least 24 hours after a fever is gone. Young children and elderly adults usually have more complications when they get the flu.

For teenagers it’s usually easy and quick to recover from the flu, however it is still very important to stay home from work and school when you are sick. This is because despite being asymptomatic a person may still spread the flu.

One prevention many people take against the flu is getting the flu shot. The flu shot is an inactivated vaccine that is given as a shot using a needle, usually in the arm.

The flu shot can also be given as a nasal mist. The flu shot is only given to people who are over six months old, and there is a high-dose flu shot available for people 65 or older. And there is also an intradermal flu shot for people between 18 and 24, available for the first time this year.

While everyone gets sick from time to time it is important to take steps to prevent the spread of the flu.

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