Influenza Epidemic Declared in Western WA

Nurses General Nursing

Published

Flu reaches 'epidemic' level in Washington, record cases reported | KING5.com

There have been 9 reported deaths, and EDs are being inundated. How are things in your area?

So glad that I got my flu shot early.

Specializes in Adult Internal Medicine.

I've had two cases in my clinic this year this season. Neither had been immunized but that's a real small sample. Neither had to be hospitalized.

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Specializes in CRNA.

I am from the PNW. Our hospital is full of Flu pts. It doesn't seem like the influenza A strains that are in the vaccine are a match for the Influenza A virus that is going around here, lots of people vaccinated and lots still testing positive for flu :nailbiting: . We are constantly out of iso carts. Can we fast forward to April please!?

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Specializes in Healthcare risk management and liability.

My wife has the flu, and both of us are diligent about getting immunized every year. I am waiting to see if I contract it also.

My suggestion that she live in the garage for the next week, solely for infection control purposes, was not met with approval.

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Specializes in OR, Nursing Professional Development.

Not in WA (mid-Atlantic state in the Baltimore region), but my facility has been well above 100% capacity for the last two weeks. ICU nurses are being tripled, and we've been struggling to get all of our cardiac surgery patients out of the ORs into an ICU room- and that's even with canceling many elective surgeries and only doing those that can't wait. Patients are being held in the ER because there's nowhere else for them to go- we've already turned larger patient rooms into semi-private rooms (these were previously semi-private rooms, so all of the necessary things are in the rooms, just weren't being used), opened up closed units, etc. Other hospitals are the same- I have a friend who couldn't even be transferred to a higher level of care facility from a teeny tiny hospital without the specialist she needed because it was full. I remember a few years ago one of the kind of close hospitals had to set up tents in the parking lot to handle all of the ER patients they were getting.

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We're in New England. Hubs got the "flu shot,"I didn't. We both got the same nasty flu-like illness after a weekend with snot-nosed grandchildren with generic daycare kennel cough. We were both really, really sick (fever, aches, incessant coughing to the point of vomiting and tearing intercostals) and I was unable to work at all for two weeks (and I work out of a home office). We canceled both Christmas and New Year's and didn't even get the tree decorated. I'm still sorta on light duty because I run out of gas pretty quick. Hubs is about a day ahead of me on recovery.

Still a residual cough for both of us, and I now have another thing in common with my grandchildren: I got tubes in my ears, because this particular bug (Mycoplasma pneumoniae) has a predilection for causing blood-filled blebs in middle and outer ears and tympanic membranes in addition to the pneumonia symptoms, and I have been functionally deaf in one ear and pretty much so in the other. I would have been OK with toughing it out once they ruptured and drained (oh, joy!) but I have to fly three times in the next six weeks and the ENT said I'd be really, really sorry if I didn't have a reliable vent in there.

I hear that there are a lot of these cases around here. We just stayed home and tried not to infect anybody else.

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Specializes in Pediatric Critical Care.
I got my flu shot a couple of months ago. My oldest son his wife, and two kids live up there. He's immunocompromised due to chemotherapy and a stem cell transplant.[/quote']

So.....is he Spidey?

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Specializes in Critical care.
In the county where my husband works, western PA, there have been >200 reported cases in the past 2 months! The ERs are overloaded and the hospitals have been at max capacity since the week before Christmas. Mostly influenza A cases.

I'm eastern PA and my hospital has been on overflow. I don't work in the ED so I can't say how many flu cases they are seeing, but we've had a handful on my unit already. I also know a doctor who works in the ED of another hospital and they've been getting a lot of flu cases and she said most people she's seen with it had the flu shot :scrying:

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Specializes in Critical care.

My unit has had some type of respiratory virus, but not the flu, hitting the nurses pretty hard too. In the last week I think we've had 5 different nurses call out sick. I called out sick for the first time and I've been there over a year. I think it's going to be a LONG winter :sorry:

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I do feel like the bitter cold plays a huge role in my area as far as how hard we get hit and when each flu season because of the lack of access to outpatient care that the elderly and young experience in single digit weather (more so per preference cause it's just so damn cold out).

People do seem to tend to try and bunker down until they're in respiratory distress whereas if it were warmer they would be going to their PCP's, walk-in clinics, and even the drug stores, etc earlier.

Very astute observation, and probably correct in a lot of cases.
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So.....is he Spidey?

No. :)

You know, I nick-named all my kids on AN a while back and can't remember who is who except Spidey is my youngest. He's 15. And Aquaman is my 2nd oldest. He'll be 32 in a couple of days. My daughter is 27.

My oldest son is the one diagnosed with Multiple Myeloma last year. Very rare for someone that young - less that a 2% chance of getting it. He will be 34 in March. He was on chemo to get into remission and then had a stem cell transplant. He's doing well but his immune system still isn't up to par and he rides the ferry into Seattle every day.

So yeah, get your damn flu shot folks. It won't hurt you to do so and it will help a lot of people you don't know. Riding the ferry into town, riding the bus or subway to work, driving in a car pool . . . you just never know who you might be helping.

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Specializes in Cardio-Pulmonary; Med-Surg; Private Duty.

Haven't seen influenza on my unit yet, but we've got a lot of Parainfluenza and Respiratory Syncytial Virus.

We've been hitting capacity on my floor (cardiopulmonary) pretty much every day, lots of COPD exacerbation due to parainfluenza and RSV.

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I follow ZDoggMD and he posted a video last night about an article . . . I'll just post a link to a Forbes article he posted as well. The video is really good but is about 40 minutes long.

Forbes Welcome

.. ."Right in the middle of flu season, a medical director board-certified in family medicine is using the Cleveland Clinic platform to harmfully spread misinformation about a vaccine that can reduce people's risk of a life-threatening illness. By the end of his rant, this family doctor has employed a half dozen anti-vaccine arguments that dangerously misinform readers and undermine the credibility of the Cleveland Clinic...."
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