The Iowa Department of public health has upgraded the influenza threat in Iowa to “widespread.”

Marion County Public Health Nurse Judi Van Hulzen says infection rates have been climbing quickly since the beginning of December and is urging people to consider being vaccinated against the flu if they have not already done so. She says anyone with questions about the vaccine should talk to their doctor and that for healthy people the flu is only an annoyance, but the very young and the very old can be badly harmed by it. The more people who are vaccinated in a community, the less chance there is of the flu spreading quickly there.