Today is Saturday, January 31st. This week, the American Academy of Pediatrics released its updated

vaccine schedule for kids, and for the first time in decades, it does not fully match the CDC's

recommendations. All of this is happening as this year's flu season is one of the worst in recent

years. So today, we're getting clarity about the latest strain of flu and conflicting vaccine recommendations

from one of the country's leading public health experts. My guest is Dr. Celine Gounder.

She's editor-at-large for public health at KFF Health News and a physician, infectious

disease specialist and epidemiologist at NYU and Bellevue Hospital. She helps us break down

what this split between the AAP and the CDC actually means

for families, where this flu season stands right now, and what flu symptoms, treatments, and timing

really matter. We hope this helps you feel more prepared and make more informed decisions for

yourself and your family. Welcome to the Newsworthy special edition Saturday when we sit down with a different

expert or celebrity every Saturday to talk about something in the news. Don't forget to tune in

every Monday through Friday for our regular episodes where we provide all the day's news in less

than 15 minutes. I'm Erica Mandy. It's now time for today's special edition Saturday.

Dr. Celine Gounder, thank you so much for joining us here on the Newsworthy.

It's great to be here. So from what I'm reading, at least, flu activity is starting to decline nationwide,

even while ER visits, for school-aged kids at least, is still increasing. So can you give us an

update on where the flu season stands right now and how serious is it?

We have largely peaked in terms of flu cases.

There is a lag after people get flu before you'll see a peak in hospitalizations and deaths

because it takes time to get sicker and unfortunately in some cases die.

But we have hit sort of that peak of people getting infected and should be seeing a decline in

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