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| Damien Dancy puts masks on his children Damaya, 3, left, and Damien, 7, on Wednesday, Jan. 9, 2013 at Sentara Princess Anne Hospital in Virginia Beach, Va. Hospitals in Hampton Roads are urging patients and visitors to wear a mask at their facilities to help stop the spread of the flu. The recommendation was issued Wednesday by more than two dozen medical centers. In a joint statement, the hospitals said the recommendation applies to hospitals, urgent care centers and branch clinics, among others. |
NEW YORK (AP) -- From the Rocky Mountains to New England, hospitals are swamped with people with flu symptoms. Some medical centers are turning away visitors or making them wear face masks, and one Pennsylvania hospital set up a tent outside its ER to deal with the feverish patients.
Flu season in the U.S. has struck early and, in many places, hard.
While
flu normally doesn't blanket the country until late January or
February, it is already widespread in more than 40 states, with about 30
of them reporting some major hot spots. On Thursday, health officials
blamed the flu for the deaths of 20 children so far.
Whether this will be considered a bad season by the time it has run its course in the spring remains to be seen.
"Those of us with gray hair have seen worse," said Dr. William Schaffner, a flu expert at Vanderbilt University in Nashville.
The
evidence so far points to a moderate season, Schaffner and others say.
It looks bad in part because last year was unusually mild and because
the main strain of influenza circulating this year tends to make people
sicker and really lay them low.
David Smythe
of New York City saw it happen to his 50-year-old girlfriend, who has
been knocked out for about two weeks. "She's been in bed. She can't even
get up," he said.
Also, the flu's early
arrival coincided with spikes in a variety of other viruses, including a
childhood malady that mimics flu and a new norovirus that causes
vomiting and diarrhea, or what is commonly known as "stomach flu." So
what people are calling the flu may, in fact, be something else.
"There
may be more of an overlap than we normally see," said Dr. Joseph
Bresee, who tracks the flu for the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention.
Most people don't undergo lab
tests to confirm flu, and the symptoms are so similar that it can be
hard to distinguish flu from other viruses, or even a cold. Over the
holidays, 250 people were sickened at a Mormon missionary training
center in Utah, but the culprit turned out to be a norovirus, not the
flu.
Flu is a major contributor, though, to what's going on.
"I'd
say 75 percent," said Dr. Dan Surdam, head of the emergency department
at Cheyenne Regional Medical Center, Wyoming's largest hospital. The
17-bed emergency room saw its busiest day ever last week, with 166
visitors.
The early onslaught has resulted in a
spike in hospitalizations. To deal with the influx and protect other
patients from getting sick, hospitals are restricting visits from
children, requiring family members to wear masks and banning anyone with
flu symptoms from maternity wards.
One
hospital in Allentown, Pa., set up a tent this week for a steady stream
of patients with flu symptoms. But so far "what we're seeing is a
typical flu season," said Terry Burger, director of infection control
and prevention for the hospital, Lehigh Valley Hospital-Cedar Crest.
On
Wednesday, Boston declared a public health emergency, with the city's
hospitals counting about 1,500 emergency room visits since December by
people with flu-like symptoms.
All the flu
activity has led some to question whether this year's flu shot is
working. While health officials are still analyzing the vaccine, early
indications are that it's about 60 percent effective, which is in line
with what's been seen in other years.
The
vaccine is reformulated each year, based on experts' best guess of which
strains of the virus will predominate. This year's vaccine is
well-matched to what's going around. The government estimates that
between a third and half of Americans have gotten the vaccine.
In
New York City, 57-year-old Judith Quinones skipped getting a flu shot
this season and suffered her worst case of flu-like illness in years.
She was laid up for nearly a month with fever and body aches. "I just
couldn't function," she said.
But her daughter got the vaccine. "And she got sick twice," Quinones said.
Europe
is also suffering an early flu season, though a milder strain
predominates there. Flu reports are up, too, in China, Japan, the West
Bank, the Gaza Strip, Algeria and the Republic of Congo. Britain has
seen a surge in cases of norovirus.
On
average, about 24,000 Americans die each flu season, according to the
CDC. That's an estimate - the agency does not keep a running tally of
adult flu deaths each year, only for children. Some state health
departments do keep count, and they've reported dozens of flu deaths so
far.
Flu usually peaks in midwinter. Symptoms
can include fever, cough, runny nose, head and body aches and fatigue.
Some people also suffer vomiting and diarrhea, and some develop
pneumonia or other severe complications.
Most
people with flu have a mild illness and can help themselves and protect
others by staying home and resting. But people with severe symptoms
should see a doctor. They may be given antiviral drugs or other
medications to ease symptoms.
Flu vaccinations
are recommended for everyone 6 months or older. Of the 20 children
killed by the flu this season, only two were fully vaccinated.
