Flu season is in full swing across Florida and the rest of the country.
And people are feeling it.
Many states in the U.S. reported “high” or “very high” levels of influenza-like illness during the week ending Dec. 27, federal data shows. That means the country has recently recorded a lot of outpatient visits involving fever, cough or sore throat, common symptoms of flu and other respiratory illnesses.
A mutated form of the influenza A strain H3N2 known as clade K or subclade K is behind many of the reported flu cases in the U.S. this season, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Michelle Marchante covers the pulse of healthcare in South Florida and also the City of Coral Gables. Before that, she covered the COVID-19 pandemic, hurricanes, crime, education, entertainment and other topics in South Florida for the Herald as a breaking news reporter. She recently won first place in the health reporting category in the 2025 Sunshine State Awards for her coverage of Steward Health’s bankruptcy. An investigative series about the abrupt closure of a Miami heart transplant program led Michelle and her colleagues to be recognized as finalists in two 2024 Florida Sunshine State Award categories. She also won second place in the 73rd annual Green Eyeshade Awards for her consumer-focused healthcare stories and was part of the team of reporters who won a 2022 Pulitzer Prize for the Miami Herald’s breaking news coverage of the Surfside building collapse. Michelle graduated with honors from Florida International University and was a 2025 National Press Foundation Covering Workplace Mental Health fellow and a 2020-2021 Poynter-Koch Media & Journalism fellow. Support my work with a digital subscription
