Health experts are urging people to get vaccinated as the flu season arrives this year.

While the flu season usually just starts in October, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is already sounding the alarm for this year, with their "flu burden" gage at the highest it's been since 2009.

"This is actually the third week in a row that there has been widespread flu activity in New York state. We don't usually see this level of activity in October, so it's earlier and we're just worried that there will be a big flu season. That's what we saw in Australia. It was the worst flu season in five years," says Dr. Dana Mazo, who teaches about infectious diseases at New York University.

Mazo says there could be a few reasons for that. The last few years, because of COVID-19, people were masking up and not crowding together as much.

While that stopped things like the flu from spreading, she says it also made our bodies less prepared to fight back.

"We usually sort of get a little bit of protection by having flu infections each year. Our immune system, we don't really know what immune systems are going to do. We are worried that this flu season will be worse and peoples' responses and immune reaction to it will be worse," Mazo cautions.

To try to boost responses, experts like Mazo say the best thing that one can do is get vaccinated against the flu.

To get the flu vaccine, follow this link.