Got a nasty head or chest infection? It’s not just you. Doctors in Northeast Ohio say that while the flu is the predominant infection right now, several other respiratory viruses are also circulating.
The latest reporting from the Ohio Department of Health (ODH) shows the number of weekly cases of flu doubled shortly after Thanksgiving – and more people are seriously ill this year than at this time normally. Flu activity is "very high" in Ohio, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
“Even in my personal life, among my friends and my more extended family, everybody's getting it,” said Dr. Amy Edwards, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at University Hospitals (UH). “The flu is not a cold. It is a nasty, nasty virus that can last as long as one to two weeks.”
Edwards said she’s worried flu this year will be as bad as respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), which recently filled up hospitals, but is now declining.
The share of patients who are testing positive for flu is concerning, she said. Last week, the positivity rate in the UH system was 26.5%.
"It's just going up, up, up, up every week," Edwards said.
This flu season seems to have come on sooner and harder than in years past, the data show.
More people are hospitalized statewide earlier in the season than compared to an average of the previous five years, ODH data show. The week ending Nov. 26, about 400 people were in the state's hospitals. Normally, fewer than 50 people are in the hospital with flu at that time of year.
There are lots of different viruses going around, said Dr. Frank Esper, an infectious disease doctor at the Cleveland Clinic Children's Hospital. Ironically, the protective measures taken to prevent the spread of COVID-19 also prevented us from being exposed to new viruses.
That means that now our immune systems are missing years' worth of information they would have gotten from routine exposure to viruses, he said.
“We live in a world that's full of these viruses. And a lot of times normally they kind of come and go, and we just feel a minor illness — maybe don't even get a fever — and we don't think about it," Esper said. "But on a year like this where we've been devoid of a protective immunity from the last one and a half to two years, we may actually start feeling them a lot worse.”
It's difficult to tell which infection a person has by the symptoms, said Dr. Jim Kravec, chief clinical officer at Mercy Health, Lorain and Youngstown.
“We have influenza, COVID, RSV, and then parainfluenza is just another virus that's out in the community, and that's causing sore throats, laryngitis-type symptoms, cough, mucus," said Kravec.
Parainfluenza viruses commonly cause respiratory infections in infants and young children, according to the CDC. Patients usually recover on their own, but these viruses can also cause more severe illnesses like croup or pneumonia.
There is currently no vaccine for parainfluenza, but there is one for the flu.
The flu can make you sick for weeks and because there’s more than one strain this year you can get it more than once, warned Esper, of the Cleveland Clinic. The flu shot protects against both strains, and it’s not too late to get your shot, he added.
How bad flu season will ultimately be is partly up to the public, said Edwards, of UH.
“The flu shot's been around for decades and decades and decades and decades. This is nothing to get in a twist about," she said. "Just go get your flu shot. Give us a break. Let [health care providers] take a day off, a few nights.”
