The nation is in full flu season and it’s taken a turn for the worse.
Snyder is one of the regions with an elevated number of flu cases.
Tara Camp, from Cogdell Memorial Hospital, reported that as of today, Snyder has seen 337 confirmed influenza illnesses, up from its usual number and she noted that was only confirmed cases. It did not account for people who did not see a doctor about their symptoms and toughed it out themselves.
“It’s a good number to look at to start with,” she said, “but there are a lot of people who have had the flu that might not have come in. So that number is just a baseline.”
Camp said that there are a few ways to protect yourself from catching an influenza-like illness, beginning with getting a flu shot.
“We always try to start pushing the flu vaccine right in the beginning of October,” Camp said. “That’s when the CDC tells us to. That’s their recommendation, and we go by that.”
Beyond that, Camp said that there were still a few things people could do to avoid getting sick, including sanitizing personal and communal spaces, making sure to wash clothing, sheets and other cloth items regularly to rid them of lingering germs, and wearing a mask to avoid contracting airborne illness.
Most importantly, she stressed that anyone feeling under the weather needed to avoid being in public as much as possible to keep from spreading sickness. Many people are not willing to miss a day of work, but if they continue to go out they risk spreading their illness to others and possibly prolonging their own by denying themselves the rest needed to recover.
“If you have the flu, you need to just stay home,” Camp said.
“Wear a mask if you’re going to be out anywhere. Even at home. Once it hits a family member, it’s going to spread to everybody else.”
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) find that all regions of the country are seeing elevated levels of flu-like illness. The CDC estimates that so far this season there have been at least 4.6 million flu illnesses, 39,000 hospitalizations and 2,100 deaths from flu, which, although below the epidemic threshold, still puts many people in the nation at risk for illness.
The CDC reports that 46 of 50 states are plagued by increased influenza-like illness and/or lab-confirmed institutional outbreaks in at least half of the regions within their borders.
This flu season, nearly 171 million vaccine doses have been administered nationwide..
The CDC recommends that everyone six months and older get a flu vaccine each season.
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