Has the Flu hit your area yet?

Sure! The flu map across the southern third of the US has been lit up for weeks, much earlier in the year than what we usually see. Florida, where I live, actually lagged behind the Deep South, but now is pretty bad. I fully expect that the next week or two the map for the northern states will be red, purple, and brown, which means it’s heavy with flu right now, because there is a lag compiling the info. We’ll see if I’m right. All of those people who were here vacationing in warmer weather have been bringing it back home the last few weeks.

Here’s the map. I’ve been watching it for a month. Well, I check it now and then throughout the year, but the last month I looked about once a week. https://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/usmap.htm

I know people with flu, covid, regular cold, and stomach flu (early this year, usually Norovirus is February-March).

When I read about flu deaths it didn’t seem more severe this year than average, but I looked at those stats a few weeks ago. I’ll have to look that up again.

Haven’t heard of anyone with flu yet but there have been a number of people with upper respiratory infections. I got the RSV shot this week and the flu shot in October.

It’s here but not stronger than pre-pandemic flu season levels

Not bad here yet.

Flu is up according to local health department, we had a 9 year old girl die from the flu. It got into her heart muscle.

My partner is a traveling hospital lab tech (currently working in Va). She’s seen a moderate uptick in Covid, a significant increase in flu, and a surprising change in RSV – it’s no longer only babies and the elderly testing positive, they’re seeing it in young and middle-aged adults now.

Roses are reddish,
Violets are bluish,
Near where I live,
Most people are fluish.

@Blackwater_Park What state are you in?

Tn

TN has been super high widespread flu for weeks, did you see my link above? Compare to weeks 49,50,51 2015, 2016. You’ll see it’s widespread early this year.

Not all of TN is badly affected. Here’s the TN link. https://www.tn.gov/health/cedep/immunization-program/ip/flu-in-tennessee.html

I’ve not heard of any people diagnosed with the flu, lately. Some friends had some bad colds that took a few weeks to get over, but there was no diagnosis. Some friends of friends have had the Covid recently. Luckily for us, no flu. I can’t get the flu shot so I just take my chances.

@syz RSV isn’t new in adults. It’s just usually mild in adults. Seniors have more chance of severe symptoms. Was she even testing for RSV five years ago?

Get your flu shot.

@Caravanfan What do you suggest for the RSV shot?

@Caravanfan In Oct. I got the Covid, RSV, & Flu shots all at the same time. I felt like a pin cushion but knew if I left one off that would be the one that I would come down with, so I hedged my bets!!!

@chyna Over 60.

For my state, it shows it’s high, but I don’t know of anyone that has either yet. Spent a week with my sister over Thanksgiving and she didn’t know the cough she had was the flu. The flu she had didn’t pass to anyone else. I didn’t catch it at all but just in case it was another kind of flu I did the same as you. The flu shot never makes me ill and this recently updated covid shot didn’t make me ill either. Just a slightly sore arm. Most people I know have their vaccinations. Doesn’t mean that one can’t catch a different flu though. But for now, I am protected from the nasty one and the more recent covid that is passing around. I only ever got sick from one covid shot but I took it when I had a slight cold, so it may be my immune system was weak at the moment. Its often why they say you shouldn’t get vaccines when you are not well. It kicked my butt for 2 days.

@Pandora It’s almost impossible to not know you have the flu. The flu gives almost everyone a pretty high fever and very significant fatigue and comes on like a truck hit you. Why does she now think she had the flu? What did she do, take ibuprofen and cough medicine and still go to Thanksgiving with everyone? Had she already been sick for 3 or 4 days? Maybe she was getting over it and not contagious anymore.

I sure do love living in a small town in Western Canada hasn’t been bad here yet.

Well, I get to bring in the new year with COVID, my first time getting it.

@Blackwater_Park Feel better fast!

@Blackwater_Park Feel better, greet the New Year gently.

I can hardly tell I have it. Just feels like I got into a little dust while putting up Christmas decorations, and my allergies got stirred up a little.

@Blackwater_Park I’m glad it’s so mild for you. Sucks that it’s during the holiday.

Shrug at the un-vaccinated. Make better decisions next year. LOL as if.

I’ve given up caring about the COVID unvaxxed. Let ‘em suffer. I know I’m protected, as are many (most) of the people I interact with.

As for the RSV stuff, I have a doctor appointment Wednesday, and will ask him then.

RSV vaccine is approved for people over 60 and pregnant women. A lot of insurance companies seem to not be paying for it ages 60–65. I don’t know of insurance has been covering the pregnant women. Medicare covers it from what I have been told.

IDK.

@leslie, she had the flu a few weeks before but felt better for a while and then had mild symptoms for a few more weeks. She has lots of allergies and so she thought maybe it was that. Shortly after we left she started to feel really bad and then went to see the doctor after being bed ridden for 2 days. The doc said she probably never really got over the flu properly and so he gave her stronger antibiotic to help her out.

@Pandora Antibiotics don’t treat the flu. Maybe he thought she had a bacterial lung infection secondary to the flu. If she doesn’t get better I’ll tell you my post flu story that might help her.

I’m not currently in my area, but I do have the flu (and likely caught it at a very crowded theme park I went to on Thursday). Symptoms are tapering off, but I spent New Year’s Eve in bed with a fever. :(

@JLeslie But it didn’t usually result in hospitalization of middle-aged adults.

@syz RSV? I know. It still doesn’t. Are you saying she is testing patients in the hospital? I missed that. For some reason I was thinking doctor’s office.

@JLeslie It is now. ER labs.

@syz It’s just been infecting a lot of people the last couple of years. 2022 and 2023 we had widespread RSV so more people were hospitalized, but I don’t think more 13–60 year olds were getting severely ill per 100,000 compared to prior years. I found this website: https://usafacts.org/articles/what-is-the-state-of-rsv-in-the-united-states/

Children younger than 5 and adults over 65 are the most susceptible to severe RSV cases. During the 2022–23 season, children were hospitalized with RSV-related illness at an overall rate of 605.6 per 100,000, more than 10 times the rate of the general population. People over 65 had a rate of 65.5 hospitalizations per 100,000.

RSV is responsible for between 58,000 and 80,000 hospitalizations of young children and between 60,000 and 160,000 hospitalizations of seniors in an average year, the bulk of which happen in the fall and winter. These are estimated to result in between 6,000 and 10,000 deaths among seniors and 100–300 deaths among children younger than 5 annually.

Way way more deadly in adults over 60.

The article barely mentions adults 18–59, but if my math is right they have a .06 in 100 chance of hospitalization for severe illness. It said children are hospitalized 605 per 100,000, so that’s 6 per 1,000 or .6 per 100 so younger and middle aged adults it’s .06 per 100. Low, but not nothing that’s for sure, not the way that virus has been spreading around. The link I gave has a graph showing just how big the increase is.

So many people I know are sick now with flu, covid, colds, bad coughs, the variety is incredible. It seems stomach flu might have started early this year where I live. Usually it hits February/March, but I heard of two cases a week ago so I assume it’s here already. One of the Disney facebook groups I’m in is a good indicator. They’ll start posting “don’t eat at restaurant X…” but it’s the virus.