ARKANSAS, USA — Hospitals across our area are seeing a lot of patients being admitted with respiratory illnesses like COVID and the flu.
Mercy Hospital Northwest and Fort Smith both continue to see a high number of patients with respiratory illnesses— so many that they are currently at ICU capacity.
Washington Regional Medical Center is also seeing a high number of patients, with many needing intensive care. But they are seeing the number of people admitted with the flu begin to drop. However, the number of patients being admitted with COVID-19 continues to climb slowly. Doctors say they may see an increase in cases in the coming weeks following holiday gatherings.
Arkansas Department of Health State Epidemiologist Dr. Mike Cima says with the winter season comes increased respiratory viruses.
“Right now, that is predominantly COVID-19 influenza, you know, we had an earlier start to the flu season than previous pre-pandemic seasons. That has thankfully slowed a bit, but it's still quite high,” he said.
Dr. Cima says COVID-19 cases have been increasing since the Thanksgiving holiday and both flu and COVID are contributing to the rise in hospitalizations.
He says even though 405 hospitalizations statewide may sound high, hospitalizations got up to more than 1,500 this time last year with the omicron surge. He says the best way to protect yourself is to get the updated vaccine.
“When I'm talking about being up to date on your vaccinations, right now that means having received your updated booster that is more well paired with the variants that are spreading around the state and have been spreading on the state since the fall,” he said.
The newest COVID variant, Dr. Cima says is rapidly gaining ground through the entire country including here in Arkansas and is expected to soon be the dominant variant.
“It is expected that that variant will be dominant in short order, is what we know thus far is that it appears to be the most transmissible and the most immune evasive building on each variant that has come before it all, you know, sub-lineages of omicron. What we don't know at this point definitively is if it causes more severe disease right now, there's no evidence to suggest that it does cause more severe disease but our knowledge about this variant is evolving, and the data are scarce,” he said.
The Arkansas Department of Health says if you feel sick, stay home and take a test. If you are positive, stay home until you’ve recovered. And if you do get sick there are medications that will help. They also suggest getting the flu vaccine if you haven’t already.
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