We’re in the midst of an intense influenza season.
The peak of the influenza season has come and there are about three more weeks of higher likelihoods of catching the bug before the virus starts to fade.
For today’s edition of the Times, I wrote a news story on the flu, so I had talked to a lot of people about it. On Friday I popped into a local pharmacy to pick up a prescription and asked those working behind the counter if they’d been filling a lot of prescriptions for Tamiflu.
“Oh yes!” was the answer.
The biggest precaution against getting influenza is being immunized. Even if you haven’t received an influenza shot yet this flu season, you could still benefit from one.
Getting an annual flu shot has been a ritual for me since my mid-20s. That’s not to say it’s always been fool-proof. In 2000, I caught a case of influenza that saw my temperature shoot up to 103 and I had a scratchy, sore throat. I’ve always wondered in cases like this if I’ve caught strep throat – another nasty bug. But in 2000 the respiratory symptoms of the flu soon appeared and I spent the next five days pretty miserable. Thankfully I could isolate myself from others and do my job.
There are many jobs that can’t be done when you have the flu, especially the early stages of it when you have a blinding headache and every time you stand up the room starts spinning.
A fever can be treated by alternate doses of acetaminophen and ibuprofen. Although this makes a person feel better, they have not been magically healed from influenza by taking these medications. They only “cover up” a symptom and although they can still function, they are still contagious.
The influenza season costs $100 billion in lost sales and services around the world each year. You can double or triple that this year thanks to the emergence of the COVID-19 virus – “Coronavirus.”
COVID-19 spreads just like influenza. Monday’s national news included huge headlines talking about the first two deaths in the United States due to COVID-19. While that’s tragic, the Center for Disease Control estimates that 18,000 to 46,000 people have died already this season due to influenza.
COVID-19, at the moment, doesn’t look that threatening when you compare its statistics to seasonal influenza.
COVID-19 has an interesting story. It originated from a huge open-air food market in Wuhan City, China, where wild game was being traded. Rumors that a batch of soup made with wild bat meat was the cause of COVID-19 haven’t been verified of are being debunked.
I realize each culture has its delicacies, but I just can’t see myself walking around an enormous food market looking forward to a tasty bowl of bat broth. It absolutely is a cultural thing.
What do we have on our American menu of open-air delicacies? Fried cheese curds, corn dogs, funnel cakes, walking tacos ... Our food isn’t necessarily going to start a pandemic, but it will certainly make long-term illnesses like diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease flourish.
If the bat broth had been cooked five more minutes, maybe we’d be pointing or fingers at our political leaders, who have done little to prevent our nation’s addiction to fatty, fried foods. Trying to keep Americans away from their steady diet of Quarter Pounders, French Fries and Snickers bars washed down with Busch Light or Diet Coke could start America’s next civil war.
Hopefully in these early days of March we’ll have great weather to bring about the kind of temperatures we need to kill off this crazy array of illnesses.
— Matt Johnson is publisher of the Monroe Times. His column is published Wednesdays.
