Health Care — Flu season is coming, and it could be brutal

Tennis is losing another legend this year. Switzerland’s Roger Federer announced today he will be retiring, just weeks after Serena Williams played her final game.

In health care news, flu season could be especially difficult this year, the first since most COVID restrictions (notably masks) have been lifted.  

Welcome to Overnight Health Care, where we’re following the latest moves on policy and news affecting your health. For The Hill, we’re Nathaniel Weixel and Joseph Choi. Someone forward you this newsletter? Subscribe here.

Nation warned to brace for a difficult flu season  

Health experts are warning the nation to brace for what could be an exceptionally severe flu season this fall and winter, as more people who have not built up immunity over the last few years mix and mingle. There are two big reasons why more people could be vulnerable to the flu this year.   

• The first is that with coronavirus restrictions such as the wearing of masks all but forgotten, people are more likely to come into contact with the flu virus this year than over the last two years.   
• The second reason is that fewer people are likely to be immune from the flu virus this year because fewer people have been getting the flu over the last two years — as the pandemic locked people down and as people worried more about getting COVID-19. 

Richard Webby, a virologist at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital’s infectious diseases department, said the past two flu seasons simply have not seen the same levels of exposure to the flu. 

“As a population, our immunity to the flu is down a bit,” Webby said. “When the virus comes back, it’s probably going to have a little bit more room to spread, a little bit more room to potentially cause disease.” 

Amesh Adalja, senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security at the Bloomberg School of Public Health, said the flu season for the past two years has essentially been “nonexistent” and added that this trend was always bound to end once social distancing became less practiced. 

According to Adalja, evidence of the flu picking back up is a sign that people are returning to “some semblance of their life pre-COVID.”   

Read more here. 

Judge temporarily blocks Ohio six-week abortion ban

A judge on Wednesday temporarily paused Ohio’s six-week abortion ban that went into effect after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June. 

Hamilton County Judge Christian Jenkins issued a temporary restraining order that will stop the law’s implementation for 14 days, with pro-abortion activists now asking the judge to issue a preliminary injunction that would further block the law for the duration of the case. 

Jenkins granted the pause in part because he believes the plaintiffs have a substantially likely chance of winning the case under protections granted by the state’s constitution. 

The legislation, known as the “Heartbeat Law”…