#twindemic

Your once in a while reminder that covid really isn't over. If you have symptoms you should still test and take precautions. Some people will get really unwell from covid and it's important to protect others.

Influenza and COVID-19 both cause pneumonia and increase ICU demands. Winter also brings an increase in heart attacks and traumatic injuries, further impacting ICU demands.

But only COVID-19 has exponential growth.

Our limited COVID-19 testing abilities will quickly become a contributing factor in spread.

There are only so many swabs, testing machines and trained personnel. All are finite resources. We use much of the same items to test for influenza.

Moreover, the symptoms are nearly indistinguishable.

A confirmatory rapid flu test does not rule out COVID-19. The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. The new issue becomes testing for both.

In California, there is now a laboratory confirmed case of an under the age 65 person with both, simultaneously.

With a decreasing ability to confirm COVID-19, the number of days before the number of infected persons doubles in size will decrease.

Our hospitals will fail. Our healthcare system will collapse. Necessary medical personnel will be incapacitated by illness. We will ration care. Many will die because of COVID-19 without ever contracting COVID-19.

Help yourself while helping your hospital by finding your county's dashboard listing the number of available beds. When those numbers are high, limit driving, shoveling snow and other activities known to increase risk of cardiac events and trauma.

Even if you refuse to believe in masks, virology or public health guidelines, please believe your hospital can and does count beds.

Someone you love is depending on those beds. Not everyone will have access to one.

You notice it! We do too.. and maybe even you are a apart of the sudden burst of illnesses sweeping the nation by storm..

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that 31 U.S. jurisdictions.. which include territories and Washington, D.C., had “very high” levels of respiratory illness and 16 jurisdictions had “high” levels last week.

19 jurisdictions had very high levels and 17 jurisdictions had high levels the week before. 

MORE..

The first 'flurona' virus was found in a woman who recently gave birth in a hospital in Petah Tikva city, in central Israel, Ynet news portal reported on Thursday.

According to reports, the young woman was unvaccinated and results from the hospital detected the co-presence of both the flu and the COVID-19 pathogens.