Kansas still the sickest state

Kansas is the sickest state in the country with 6.6% of the population (about 191K people) experiencing flu-like symptoms. The national illness level is at 5% this week. Last year Kansas peaked at 5.3% ill and currently Kansas is 6.6% sick and climbing.

This data is from Kinsa, a company that is accurately seeing where the flu is spreading in real time with the help of their smart thermometers. Kinsa’s data is nearly perfectly aligned with the CDC’s influenza data over the past 3 years, but is available right away and with unprecedented geo-precision.

Some points of interest:

The illness level in the United States is at 5% ill. This is a 42% increase from this time last year. This equates to about 16.3 million people.
The sickest state this week is Kansas, at 6.6% sick. These people are experiencing elevated temperatures and flu-like symptoms including cough, sore throat and chills.
Missouri is the 2nd sickest state at 6.5%
Iowa is 3rd at 6.3% ill