People in Los Angeles County are increasingly visiting emergency departments with flu symptoms as cases rise nationwide.
“It seems to be a more aggressive strain, and it seems to be a tougher problem,” Sam Torbati, MD, co-chair and medical director of the Cedars-Sinai Emergency Department, said of this year’s flu. “Last year, I don't recall this many patients becoming this ill.”
Torbati cautioned that it's still very early in Los Angeles’ 2026 flu season, particularly because in the U.S., the flu tends to start along the East Coast and spread westward.
“It may get much worse,” he said.
In the following Q&A, Torbati explains why patients are getting so sick, how to treat the flu and how to avoid a serious illness.
Who needs emergency care for the flu?
We're seeing a lot of older patients who live by themselves, and if somebody is not keeping an eye on them and they become sick, then no one is taking care of them. They could be lying in bed for two days getting very dehydrated and getting into trouble.
There are also many patients with chronic diseases who develop the flu, and two or three days later they're wiped out. When they come to the hospital, sometimes they’re dehydrated, sometimes they have a bacterial infection and sometimes it's just the flu itself.
The flu, in and of itself, can cause significant problems for patients. It can make them very sick, can make them very much out of it to the point that they can't stand, become dehydrated, and hospitalization becomes necessary to get them back on their feet.
How bad is flu season so far this year?
Around the second week of December, we started seeing a lot of influenza patients coming to the Emergency Department. That spike in flu activity was similarly seen throughout the county. We're seeing patients—the very young, the very old—everybody that gets affected by flu.
We did anticipate, based on some of the predictions from the southern hemisphere, that we were going to see a moderately severe flu season.
What are the most common flu symptoms right now?
In the early phase, we typically see fever, body ache, bone pain, runny nose, cough. The fever usually lasts anywhere from two to five days. Fever tends to stop, and then we end up having a lot of the lingering symptoms. Some patients have coughs that linger for a while. Some can have congestion that can linger for a while. But the average is a good seven to 10 days. So people should expect if they get sick, that it may take that long until they're back to normal, to the point that they feel 100%.
What is the best way to treat the flu?
If you're healthy and younger and you have a viral infection with flu-like symptoms, you basically need to take care of yourself. If you're coughing a lot, take cough medication. If you have a fever, take Tylenol or Motrin. Rest, isolate, drink a lot of fluids so you don't get dehydrated.
For patients who have shortness of breath, asthma or respiratory issues—or for older patients who are developing more severe symptoms—a doctor's visit may become important primarily to make sure that there isn't any complication.
For patients who have underlying medical illnesses—heart failure, COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease), severe asthma, and transplant patients—the sicker and more complicated their medical history is, and the sicker they feel, the more likely it is that a hospital would be helpful, and coming into the ER would be helpful. For some patients, we will prescribe an antiviral called Tamiflu to reduce the risk of a more serious illness if the medication can be started early enough.
What is the best way to avoid a serious flu illness?
It's still not too late to get a vaccine. And although the vaccines are not perfect—they don't completely prevent flu—there is ample evidence to show that they can reduce the severity of what flu does.
Source: Cedars-Sinai