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This morning we came back from a long holiday weekend. The weekend’s lab results were waiting for me. These included:
- Thirty Six cases of influenza, mostly Flu A
- Four cases of RSV
- One case of COVID.
Several facts struck me about this haul. One is of course that these all have vaccines available to prevent them — your insurance might even cover them at no charge to you. I must of course make the caveat that these vaccines are not available to everyone. There are restrictions based largely on age. Some of them work better than others, but all of them are “better than nothing.”
Another interesting fact is that although COVID is still with us, RSV and Flu were far bigger problems. Before you start saying “oh come on, it’s just the flu!” I’d like to point out that every year thousands of people die of influenza. RSV is also a potential killer, mostly in children on one end and older adults on the other.
Not so fun fact, we’re just barely getting to the middle of “flu season,” so you can expect even more of this lovely stuff wherever in the Northern Hemisphere you may be.
But the thing I found saddest is the number of children who passed through our Emergency Department and Freestanding ED (FED in hospital-talk). The saddest part is that most of them got sick after Christmas. It’s very likely some selfish relative who just had to see the kids/cousins/niblings/grandkids left an unintended extra gift this year: getting sick enough go to an Emergency Department for a respiratory illness panel. And that makes me unhappy.
My job is literally preventing infections. Please, do your part. Stay home if you’re sick rather than “power through it.” In particular, show love for the kids by not going to visit them when you’re sick. Wear a mask when appropriate. Keep your hands clean — literally the number one thing you can do to prevent all illness. And it’s still not too late to get vaccinated against preventable illnesses.