The process of making flu vaccines starts months before the actual flu season gets under way because it takes a long time to make them using the current technology. In recent years, flu vaccines have been based on H1N1, H3N2 and either one or two strains of influenza B virus. Each of these has a “reference” strain that has particular mutations to match the current drift. The decrease in child deaths from 22 the week before by itself was not necessarily a sign the severe flu season was abating, however, as each week's total from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention includes deaths from earlier in the season. And the vaccine was overall only 25 percent protective against H3N2, meaning it lowered the risk of developing illness serious enough to go see a doctor by 25 percent. One study published last year suggested FluBlok might have worked better than at least one of the other vaccines on the market in past year. But CDC officials say they don’t have enough data to say whether it consistently protects people better, and they do not know enough to recommend one vaccine over another. "We're hoping this year to find out whether or not there's a performance difference between cell-based vaccines and the egg-based vaccines," the CDC's Dr. Daniel Jernigan told NBC News. This technology tries to help you get well faster 
 
 This year's flu vaccines are preventing about 36% of flu cases in vaccinated people but are working better, at a rate of about 59%, in young children, according to the CDC. The CDC estimates that between 140,000 and 700,000 people get sick enough from flu every year in the U.S. to need hospital care, and the annual flu epidemic kills anywhere from 12,000 to 56,000 people a year, depending on how bad the flu season is. The 2017-2018 season has been a severe one, hitting the entire U.S. with widespread influenza activity at once for weeks on end, and killing 97 children so far. That leads Nordlund to note, "it looks like we still have many more weeks of flu season to go," adding that it could last until mid-April.
– "It does like the peak is behind us now," CBS News quotes Dr. Dan Jernigan as saying. But the director of the CDC's Influenza Division says that doesn't mean we're out of the woods yet, warning there's still "a fair amount of influenza to go." Jernigan says this flu season, which has been the worst in a decade, could continue until mid-April. And despite signs the flu is finally letting up, it's still doing plenty of damage. The share of doctor's visits related to the flu dropped from 7.5% last to week to 6.4% this week, USA Today reports. And the number of states with high patient traffic related to the flu dropped from 43 to 39. Another 13 children were reported dead from the flu this week—bringing the total this flu season to 97—but that's down from the 22 child deaths reported last week. While this year's flu vaccine is only 36% effective overall, it's 59% effective in children. Most the of children reported killed by the flu this week had not been vaccinated, and experts say parents should still be getting their children vaccinated even this far into the flu season. Meanwhile, NBC News looks at why experts believe next year's flu vaccine will be mediocre at best.