Rising flu cases force local hospitals to erect overflow tents
California’s San Diego County emergency departments are reportedly seeing overwhelming numbers of patients as flu season heats up.
According to an article published in the San Diego Union-Tribune Friday:
Scripps Memorial Hospital in Encinitas, Jacobs Medical Center at UCSD Health in La Jolla and Sharp Grossmont Hospital in La Mesa all reported on Friday that they had started using overflow tents outside of their normal emergency department buildings to deal with a current rise in respiratory illnesses.
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About 9% of ER patients had flu symptoms last week, up two percentage points from two weeks ago, with COVID-19 symptoms also increasing, but not as quickly, according to the weekly report. of the county on respiratory diseases.
Rising flu cases prompt hospitals to set up overflow tents in parking lots to ease ER burden https://t.co/NbiXGBTssL
— San Diego Union-Tribune (@sdut) November 12, 2022
According to Sharp Health, the Sharp Grossmont tent has been in place since the start of the coronavirus pandemic and “they are using the tents to test all respiratory viruses, including RSV, influenza and COVID for patients with pseudo-symptoms. influenza”. according to NBC San Diego.
The flu, more commonly known as the flu, is caused by a virus that is usually passed on to others when someone infected with the virus sneezes or coughs, according to the Johns Hopkins Medicine website.
“Each person may experience symptoms differently. The flu is called a respiratory disease, but it can affect your whole body,” the website says, adding that symptoms include cough, exhaustion, fatigue, headache, high fever, runny nose. or stuffy, body aches, sneezing, possible sore throat, vomiting, and diarrhea.
The Union-Tribune The report said emergency rooms are experiencing heavy traffic and that “Scripps hospitals and medical practices have had 1,695 positive flu tests since September 1, compared to 471 during the same period last year.”
However, staff members have so far responded to the demand for care, but that could change if they become infected and need to stay home to recover.
In Los Angeles County, there has reportedly been an increase in coronavirus and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) cases among children, KTLA reported on Saturday:
Dr. Kimberly Shriner, an infectious disease specialist at Huntington Health Hospital, told the outlet, “There’s this gap in immunity that happened when everyone was in masks and socially isolated.”
“And so the normal viruses that happened in normal winters and so on in the community weren’t circulating. So they haven’t had the opportunity to experience some of these viruses and therefore they are not immune to them,” she concluded.
Even though flu viruses are detected year-round across the country, they typically circulate during the fall and winter months with an increase in October, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
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