The virus is popular in Colorado, but the virus hasn’t struck the state almost as difficult as some others.
Since at least 2009, confirmed virus illnesses and outpatient visits for illnesses similar to the fever have both reached their highest rates. In California, facilities have struggled with an flood of seriously ill virus people, and some parts of the country have reported seeing strange complications, especially in children.
The year ending February 1 was the busiest for fever hospital admissions in Colorado since at least fall 2019. 425 people were admitted for the illness. However, it isn’t as bad as the 2017-2018 flu season, position epidemiology Dr. Rachel Herlihy said.
” Influenza rates are quite high”, she said. ” We don’t see Colorado’s higher amounts as some claims are seeing,” he said.
Flu admissions appear to be rising, so Colorado may experience more in the coming days, said Dr. Bob Belknap, senior director of the Public Health Institute at Denver Health. Nothing to date, he said, suggests that hospital power will be a concern.
” We’re still in the midst of ( the season ), so it’s hard to predict where things might go”, he said.
Although the number of strains circulating and the level of vaccinations may be a factor, Herlihy said, it is unknown precisely why the fever strikes some states more frequently than others in any one time. This period is a bit strange, because virus attacks appeared to wave around the beginning of the season, then rose once more recently, she said.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated that about 29 million Americans have had the fever so far this year, 370, 000 were tired enough to need medical attention, and 16, 000 have died. The dying full includes 68 kids.
Since the year started in October, one kid in Colorado has died from the virus. The condition doesn’t track child fever deaths.
The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment has requested more virus samples from hospitals so they can seem for avian flu, but those requests have not yielded any new circumstances, Herlihy said. Nationwide, 68 persons had confirmed birds virus, all but four of whom worked with chicken or animals.
In some ways, this year is more common than subsequent years, said Dr. Michelle Barron, top medical chairman of infection prevention and control at UCHealth. In 2020 and 2021, fever almost disappeared as folks took precautions against COVID-19.
” I think it’s all perspective”, she said.
Interestingly, kids who get the virus seem more terrible from the symptoms than normal, though those with easy cases usually don’t go to a physician, said Dr. Hector De Leon, a cardiologist at Kaiser Permanente’s Fort Collins area. He claimed that some children are simultaneously infected with another viral or bacterial infection.
” I think people’s symptoms are a little more pronounced”, he said.
According to Belknap, adults who have been admitted for the flu at Denver Health are about as sick as they should be. According to him, flu opens the door to the spread of complications like pneumonia.
Depending on many factors, how severe the flu season is, Barron said, but one factor most likely contributed this year was that fewer people had their vaccinations. Nationwide, vaccine uptake was down among children, people over 65 and pregnant women – all higher-risk groups.
The flu shot doesn’t prevent all illnesses, but significantly reduces the severity if someone does get sick, Belknap said.
“You’re less likely to get really sick and be hospitalized”, he said.
According to Barron, if other viruses were already widely răspreading, hospital capacity might suffer as a result. As is, though, COVID-19 hospitalized fewer people than in any recent winter, possibly due to immunity built up during a summer wave.
” We haven’t seen any issues with capacity”, she said. ” If we were seeing higher amounts of COVID along with flu, that would be more challenging”.
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