Texas Respiratory Season Tracker: How to Read the Numbers Like a Clinician

Reviewed by the Evolve Health clinical team · 2026-10-17 · 7 min read

Headlines are built to alarm you; dashboards are built to inform you. A headline can truthfully say cases "tripled" in a week when the underlying count went from two patients to six — technically accurate, clinically meaningless. Clinicians who follow these trackers all season read them differently: slowly, in combination, and with an eye on what a normal season looks like. This guide teaches that reading, so the next scary headline lands in context.

Where the real numbers live

• Texas DSHS — Respiratory Virus Surveillance Report. The state's own report, published by the Department of State Health Services. It tracks influenza, COVID-19, and RSV activity for Texas as a whole and broken into public health regions, including how much flu-like illness clinics are seeing and what share of flu tests are coming back positive. This is the best single source for "how is Texas doing?"
• CDC FluView. The federal weekly influenza surveillance dashboard. It maps flu activity state by state, reports which flu strains laboratories are finding, and tracks flu hospitalization rates through its hospital network. Use it to see whether Texas is ahead of, behind, or in step with the rest of the country.
• Denton County Public Health. County-level updates and advisories when something specific is circulating in our community. State and national curves tell you the weather; the county tells you what's happening on your street.

One habit matters more than which source you pick: check the report date. Surveillance is assembled from clinics, labs, and hospitals, so every report describes the week that just ended — sometimes the week before that. The trackers are a rear-view mirror with a short delay, which is exactly why the trend matters more than the latest single reading.

How to read the numbers

Four terms explain nearly everything on these dashboards:

• ILI percentage. ILI means influenza-like illness — fever of 100°F or higher plus cough and/or sore throat. The ILI percentage is the share of all clinic visits that fit that picture. Every region has a baseline: the low level it sits at when flu is barely circulating. Above baseline and rising means respiratory viruses are actively spreading. It's the earliest signal on the board — but it counts symptoms, and colds, COVID, and RSV all produce them too.
• Activity and spread words. State reports describe geographic spread with words like sporadic, local, regional, and widespread. These describe how broadly illness is showing up across the map — not how severe it is. "Widespread" in a mild season is still a mild season.
• Test positivity. The share of flu tests that come back positive. It usually climbs early in a wave, before headline case counts do, because it answers a sharper question: of the people sick enough to be tested, how many truly have flu? Its weakness is selection — tested patients are sicker than average — so treat it as a direction indicator, not a census.
• Hospitalizations. The severity signal, and the slowest. The path from infection to symptoms to a hospital bed takes days, so hospitalization curves typically trail the illness curves by a week or two. When ILI rises but hospitalizations stay flat, you're usually looking at a wave that makes many people miserable and few people dangerously ill.

The season's normal shape in Texas

Respiratory season in Texas follows a loose rhythm. Activity typically builds through late fall, peaks sometime between December and February, and tails off into spring. Some years crest early, some late, and an occasional second, smaller wave arrives in late winter when a different flu strain takes its turn. Treat that shape as the backdrop, not a forecast — the trackers exist precisely because individual seasons wander off the script.

Denton adds one local twist: cedar fever. Mountain cedar pollen peaks in the same mid-winter months and produces congestion, scratchy throat, itchy eyes, and a run-down, low-grade feeling that mimics a virus almost perfectly. In a Denton January, a good share of the "flu" in any waiting room is cedar — which is one more reason the lab-based numbers (positivity, hospital data) deserve more weight than the symptom-based ones alone.

What to do at each level

• Low activity (near baseline). Routine life. The useful moves are boring ones: know which clinic you'll call, and keep the sick-day plan for your household settled before you need it.
• Rising activity. Speed starts to matter. If you get sick, get tested early — prescription antivirals for flu work best within about 48 hours of symptoms, which is why knowing whether it's flu, COVID, or strep changes the plan. It's also the moment to review how long flu stays contagious, so one sick kid doesn't take down the whole house.
• Peak activity. Protect the vulnerable deliberately. Households with a grandparent, a newborn, a pregnant family member, or someone with asthma, diabetes, or a weakened immune system should lower their threshold: call early in an illness instead of waiting it out. Expect every waiting room in town to be fuller and same-day slots to go faster. And the oldest advice is still the working kind: stay home when you're sick, and wash hands often.

School closures and headlines vs. the data

Every season brings a week when a school district warns families or closes outright, and the neighborhood group chats conclude the worst. Read a closure for what it is: an operations decision. A school closes when it can't staff classrooms and buses safely — and with ordinary seasonal flu, enough sick teachers can do that without the illness being unusually severe. The mirror image is also true: no closure doesn't mean nothing is circulating. For severity, the dashboards win; for whether your child has school tomorrow, the district note wins. They answer different questions, and neither substitutes for the other.

When the patient is you

Trackers describe the community; they can't name what's making you sick. That's what a visit and a test are for. A result that names the virus changes treatment in concrete ways: antivirals help flu (early), antibiotics help strep throat and do nothing for a virus, and a plain cold needs neither. At Evolve Health, a sick visit is a $75 flat fee for self-pay patients — in person in Denton or by video anywhere in Texas — with the price told to you before you are seen; if you have insurance, we verify your coverage free from your insurance card, photo ID, and date of birth before the visit. One boundary no dashboard changes: trouble breathing, chest pain, confusion, or a child who is struggling to breathe is an emergency — call 911 or go to the ER first, and read the charts later.

Frequently asked questions

Where can I see how much flu is going around in Texas right now?

Three official sources publish it free. The Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS) posts a Texas Respiratory Virus Surveillance Report covering influenza, COVID-19, and RSV activity statewide and by region. The CDC's FluView dashboard shows the national picture and state-by-state flu activity. Denton County Public Health posts local updates when something is circulating here. All three are refreshed on a regular weekly cadence during the season — check the report date at the top, because surveillance data always describes the week that just ended, not today.

What does ILI mean on the flu charts?

ILI stands for influenza-like illness: a fever of 100°F or higher plus a cough and/or a sore throat, in a patient seen at a clinic or doctor's office. The ILI percentage is the share of all outpatient visits that match that picture. Every region has a baseline — the low level seen when flu is barely circulating. When the ILI percentage climbs above its baseline and keeps rising, flu is actively spreading in the community. It is an early signal, but it counts symptoms, not lab-confirmed flu, which is why trackers pair it with test results.

What does test positivity actually tell me?

Test positivity is the share of flu tests that come back positive. When it climbs, a growing fraction of the flu-like illness out there really is flu — and it usually rises early in a wave, before case counts peak. Two cautions: it only measures people who got tested, who tend to be sicker than average, and a single week's move can be noise. Clinicians watch the trend over several weeks and read positivity alongside the ILI percentage and hospitalization data rather than reacting to any one number.

When does respiratory season usually peak in Texas?

The usual pattern — not a promise for any given year — is that activity builds through late fall, peaks sometime between December and February, and tails off into spring. Some seasons crest early, some late, and a second, smaller wave (often a different flu strain) can arrive in late winter. In Denton, those same months are also cedar fever season: mountain cedar pollen peaks in mid-winter and causes congestion, itchy eyes, and low-grade misery that feels exactly like a virus but isn't one.

My child's school sent an illness warning. Should I be worried?

Read the school note as logistics, not as a severity report. Schools warn or close based on operations — how many students and, just as often, how many teachers and bus drivers are out — so a closure can happen with ordinary flu if staffing collapses. For how serious the illness itself is, the DSHS and CDC dashboards are the better source: they show whether hospitalizations are climbing or whether it is a normal seasonal wave. If your child is sick, what matters most is how they are doing, not the headline.

When should I come in and get tested?

Early — ideally within the first two days of symptoms. Prescription antivirals for flu work best when started within about 48 hours, and a test that names your virus (flu, COVID, or strep) changes what treatment makes sense. At Evolve Health a sick visit is a $75 flat fee for self-pay patients, in person in Denton or by video anywhere in Texas, with the price told to you before you are seen. If you have insurance, we verify your coverage free from your insurance card, photo ID, and date of birth before the visit.

Sources

• Texas Department of State Health Services — Texas Respiratory Virus Surveillance Report (statewide and regional influenza, COVID-19, and RSV activity)
• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — Weekly U.S. Influenza Surveillance Report (FluView) (ILI activity, laboratory results, and flu hospitalization rates)
• Denton County Public Health — local health updates and advisories for Denton County

General education only: This article explains how to read public respiratory-virus surveillance. The dashboards linked above hold the current official numbers, and nothing here substitutes for medical advice about your own illness.