If your feeling like yesterday’s rag dol, with symptoms ranging from a fever, soar throat, stuffy nose, coughing and an overall aching feeling, congratulations, you most likely have this year’s version of the flu.
So, you want to check in at the hospital or regional health care facility? Prepare for a wait. This past week area health facilities were jammed and three hour lobby times were common.
With this surge in flu related ailments, the two biggest health systems in the Rochester area are “strongly encouraging” all visitors to wear masks at their hospitals as flu cases are spiking. In addition, all staff, contractors, and volunteers are required to wear masks anytime patients are around.
“It’s a very early, very high peak compared to recent years,” said Dr. Robert Mayo, Chief Medical Officer at Rochester Regional Health.
Dr. Mayo says the hospital is working to maximize its nursing staff to open additional beds so every space can be utilized and to keep patients “as close to the care that they need as possible.”
On Dec. 1, Strong Hospital had 20 patients hospitalized with the flu. Two weeks ago, that number rose to 47, and now it stands at 71.
“Today we have 7 patients in the ICU with flu, which is a high number relatively so, not only are we seeing more flu, the severity of illness is higher than we’ve seen in the past couple of years,” said Dr. Michael Apostolakos, Chief Medical Officer at Strong and Highland Hospitals.
UR Medicine released the new masking guidelines for all of its hospitals on Wednesday, said Apostolakos. RRH also announced on Tuesday that it’s requiring masking for the next 30 days at its clinical settings. Clinical settings include hospitals, doctors’ offices, urgent cares, imaging and laboratory service centers, and long-term care facilities. UR Medicine and RRH say masks will be available at all its locations.
Wayne County Public Health Director Diane Devlin stated that 803 flu cases have been reported here, along with 79 new COVID related sicknesses.
Since late September, there have been 7,100 confirmed flu cases in the seven-county region, according to Roc Health Data. That’s more than the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases (2,115) and RSV cases (744).
Devlin highly recommends that if you have not already gotten the series of this year’s flu and COVID shots, it’s not too late. She also reminds flu shot skeptics that this season’s flu shot medications go into production in February and strains evolve even over a short period of time, but even the standard formula will lesson the severity and time of flu illnesses.
