© 2026 WGCU News
News for all of Southwest Florida
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Wash Those Hands! Flu Activity Is On The Rise In Central Florida

Flu activity is on the rise in Central Florida (Flickr Creative Commons)
Flu activity is on the rise in Central Florida (Flickr Creative Commons)

The Florida Department of Health says two children are the state’s first fatalities from the flu during the 2019 season. Both children were unvaccinated.

Health leaders declined to release any more information about the children, including their ages or locations.

In Central Florida flu activity increased between the last week of November and the first week of December.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfX6xGdQco0#action=share

Department of Health spokesman Kent Donahue recommends residents six months of age and older and pregnant women get vaccinated against the flu.

He says people should also wash their hands, disinfect frequently used surfaces at home and work and stay home from work or school when sick.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says peak flu season is December through February.

Copyright 2020 Health News Florida. To see more, visit .

Danielle Prieur/WMFE
Trusted by over 30,000 local subscribers

Local News, Right Sized for Your Morning

Quick briefs when you are busy, deeper explainers when it matters, delivered early morning and curated by WGCU editors.

  • Environment
  • Local politics
  • Health
  • And more

Free and local. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.

More from WGCU
  • Westcoast Black Theatre Troupe has a love affair with playwright Dominique Morisseau, a MacArthur fellow and winner of multiple NAACP Image Awards. The theater continues exploring her work this month with a limited run of her play, “Confederates.”
  • Suncoast Searchlight reviewed water-restriction complaints and enforcement records across Sarasota County during Southwest Florida’s most severe drought in nearly a decade and found municipalities are taking sharply different approaches to enforcement. While some jurisdictions actively patrol for violations and issue citations, others rely primarily on education and warnings and provide few clear ways for residents to report violations. We also examine how the drought has heightened public scrutiny over water use, with hundreds of residents filing complaints about sprinklers, lush lawns and suspected overwatering during the regional shortage.
  • Local officials thought a dispute over who would pay to collect a voter-approved school tax had been settled when Sarasota County commissioners agreed in a surprise vote this week to resume covering the millions of dollars withheld by Tax Collector Mike Moran. Turns out, the fight isn’t over. Behind the scenes, county, school and tax officials spent the next few days sparring over whether Tuesday’s commission vote actually restored the decades-old practice — or whether another formal vote would be required before the money could be released to the school district, according to emails obtained by Suncoast Searchlight.