Tis the Season
By Albert B. Kelly
It happens every year and generally about the same time. I
am talking about what we commonly refer to as flu season. Every November and December,
things ramp up on the flu front and despite our best efforts; it is easy to
catch whatever flu happens to be circulating through the population.
Right now, the dominant strain H3N2, but even as we speak,
there is concern about other strains globally such H5N6 and H7N9 which is
floating around Asia (China mostly) and any one of these could carry pandemic
potential. Not being a doctor and with no medical training, my interest in the
flu has been basically trying to avoid it, but as an elected official thinking
about community health, it is necessary to think more broadly.
At present, according to health officials who track
flu-related information, the age group accounting for the highest number of ER
visits for flu-related symptoms are young children under the age of 5 years
followed by tweens and teens. But it’s not just schools or school-age children catching
and spreading the flu, it happens in factories, hospitals and offices
throughout the land.
As I said, I didn’t give it all that much thought in the
past since it seems to be one of those seasonal cycles that are all but
unavoidable. But these days, I’m not so sure that we shouldn’t be more focused
on the larger issue of preserving community health by being more accommodating to
individuals and families since they really are one and the same.
This might mean employers considering more flexible
sick-time policies so that employees can stay home without losing wages. This
is critical since there is also the issue of single parents needing to stay
home with sick children who really shouldn’t be in school or daycare. Limiting
the spread of flu helps the entire community including employers.
I mention these issues because we live in strange times with
a world rendered small by 21st century air travel, unpredictable impacts
from a warming planet, more intense weather patterns and storms, an uptick in natural
disasters, a fragile health care system, and growing income inequality and food
insecurity which impacts directly on
nutrition and health.
These factors, combined with the administration’s heavy cuts
to the CDC and related programs which focus on everything from health and
research to our overuse of antibiotics and drug-resistant infections, and we
shouldn’t be surprised that we’re just one mutation away from a flu pandemic.
100 years removed there’s no memory of the 1918 H1N1 “Spanish
Flu” pandemic that claimed 100 million people worldwide and roughly 600,000 in
the U.S. Though some of us do remember the 1957 H2N2 “Asian flu” that killed
roughly 70,000 nationwide and the 1968 H3N2 “Honk Kong flu” pandemic that
claimed upwards 34,000 people in the U.S.
All of this is to say that everyone, unless advised
differently by your doctor, should seriously consider getting a flu shot,
especially senior citizens and children, who are more vulnerable. While the flu
vaccine does not provide perfect protection since scientists have to make an
educated guess about which strain will dominate months in advance, the vaccine
can make symptoms a lot less severe and even save a life.
Beyond getting a flu shot, there are other things we can do
for ourselves and for family, friends, co-workers and the community. For
starters if you are sick, if at all possible, stay home. This will help you
recover, but it will also lower the chances of making others sick. I realize
that this is more easily said than done if no work means a loss of wages. But
that is why employers need to consider flexibility with sick time rather than pressure
employees to work when ill or when they need to care for a sick child. Such
pressure and inflexible sick-time policies help no one, including the employer
who might lose more productivity with a sick workforce.
There’s also observing “flu etiquette” – things like covering
up with a tissue or a sleeve when sneezing or coughing, regular hand-washing
and use of hand sanitizer. These measures seem obvious, yet you’d be amazed at how
often these things get overlooked further impacting community health.
Finally, a good resource for information about the flu in
New Jersey and what you can do can be found at the NJ Department of Health
website http://nj.gov/health/cd/topics/flu.shtml
.
For now, tis the season, so please take care of yourself and others.