Tonight on PBS News Weekend, with 12 deaths this week, more children have died from the flu this season than at any other time in the last 15 years.

Then with hurricane season on the horizon, how staffing cuts and vacancies at the National Weather Service

could affect life-saving warnings.

And we visit a studio in Utah where budding artists with disabilities let their imagination

soar.

I pretty much promise them.

We'll get in there.

We'll figure out what you can do and I'll help make it happen.

Good evening. I'm John Yang. There were 12 seasonal flu-related deaths of children this week,

according to the CDC. That brings the total number of pediatric flu deaths this season to 216.

That's the most in 15 years, and the flu season isn't even over yet. Experts say one reason for this

new record could be the

plummeting flu vaccination rate for American children. It went from 64% five years ago to

49% this season. And this week, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

announced plans for new safety testing requirements for vaccines. That could delay

the availability of new vaccines, including a COVID booster for this fall. Verologist Dr. Peter Hotes

is at the Baylor College of Medicine. Dr. Hortez, there's a lot I want to talk to you about,

but let's start with that new record for pediatric flu deaths this season.

What do you make of that?

Well, I think it probably is related to the decline in immunization since most pediatric

influenza deaths occur among the unvaccinated, like most of the other viral infections

that we've been seeing.

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